


He Turned Around

by ChipOfftheOldSoul



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Good Draco Malfoy, Good Severus Snape, Good Slytherins, I'm not saying Dumbledore's straight up evil, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Not an Idiot Harry, Past Child Abuse, Runes, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Slow Burn, Smart Harry Potter, Some of them at least, and when i say burn i mean like barely warm, but I really don't approve of his methods, cherry-picking from canon, emotional abuse mostly, he just doesn't want anyone to know, someone has got to teach Harry about proper PR, sometimes, they're practically babies, theyre only 14 guys, will tag as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipOfftheOldSoul/pseuds/ChipOfftheOldSoul
Summary: When the Goblet of Fire spit out Harry's name that Halloween night, he was told to join the other champions. Instead, he turned around and walked away.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Severus Snape
Comments: 202
Kudos: 816





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The characters belong to J.K. Rowling. The plot belongs to me. Any quotes from the books will be in bold.

**_“Harry Potter.”_ **

**Harry sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. He had not heard correctly.**

**There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harry as he sat, frozen, in his seat.**

**Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to her feet and swept past Ludo Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent his ear toward her frowning slightly.**

**Harry turned to Ron and Hermione; beyond them, he saw the long Gryffindor table all watching him, openmouthed.**

**“I didn’t put my name in,” Harry said blankly. “You know I didn’t.”**

**Both of them stared just as blankly back.**

**At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall.**

**“Harry Potter!” he called again. “Harry! Up here, if you please!”**

**“Go on,” Hermione whispered, giving Harry a slight push.**

**Harry got to his feet, trod on the hem of his robes, and stumbled slightly. He set off up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. It felt like an immensely long walk; the top table didn’t seem to be getting any nearer at all.**

In fact, it really wasn’t getting any nearer. Harry’s feet were planted right where he had put them when he first stood. His vision tilted oddly, and his legs felt very far away. He tried to move toward the head table, he really did, but he couldn’t. He didn’t realize he was shaking his head until his neck started to hurt from the jerkiness of the motion.

“No,” he stuttered. “No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.” The words sounded roaringly loud in his own ears, but he wasn’t sure if anyone around him could hear him.

“Harry come here, please.” Dumbledore waved a wrinkled hand as if to coax Harry forward.

Harry shook his head. Finally, he started to move. First one stumbling step backwards and then another. After a few steps, he pivoted. The entire hall was silent as he walked away from the head table and towards the enormous doors of the Great Hall. The doors were usually left open during feasts to allow in any stragglers, but because of the ceremony and the Goblet of Fire’s selection, the doors had been closed. Harry had never seen them opened without magic, and he feared the too-heavy doors would trap him there with the rest of the students, professors, and officials, but when he got close to them, one of the doors moved. It was just a twitch, really, small enough that he doubted anyone further than he was could see it, but the door allowed him to shove it open, and it closed heavily behind him just when he heard footsteps finally following him.

It was only when he collapsed, full bodied, against the door at his back that he realized his hands were shaking and his knees were wobbling. He focused on stilling his hands first, but they only seemed to shake harder, and his breath came quicker and quicker until he was violently gulping for air that didn’t do him any good. He was shocked from his panic though, when banging from the other side of the door he leaned on sounded.

The doors weren’t opening for them. Hogwarts wasn’t helping them. But she was helping Harry.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps coming toward him from another direction. He had no idea where to go, but he ran. His shoes clapped against the flagstones, banging in time with the pounding in his head. The footsteps following him, though, and they were gaining on him. He had never cursed his small stature more than he did right now.

“Potter! You can’t run from the consequence of your actions!” Snape roared from behind him. Apparently, the man had been the only one to think of using a side exit to do escape the Great Hall.

Harry looked back just in time to see Snape lunging for him. He tried to duck out of the way, but Snape was too quick for him and hooked a long, thin-fingered hand around his elbow.

“No!” Harry cried. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t put my name in, and I won’t compete. You can’t make me! Please!”

Snape sneered at him. “And why should I believe you? You’re nothing but a spoiled child too used to getting his own way to realize that even you must answer for your recklessness.”

The insult wasn’t so different from those Snape had been spitting at him since he entered Hogwarts. However, for once, it didn’t make him want to shout at the man. Instead, he laughed.

It was a high hysteric sound, caught somewhere between a true laugh and a whimper of pain. Too high pitched, too fast, too breathy. Even in his own ears, he sounded manic. Snape stared at him with real concern creeping into his sallow face.

“Potter!” He swore when this didn’t stop the breakdown. He must have realized then how tightly he was still holding Harry’s bicep because he released him like he had been burned. Maybe he had, Harry thought wildly. Harry had burnt someone to death the first—second? third?—time he had almost been killed at Hogwarts. Why should that be only a one-time, poorly explained power?

Gently, almost kindly, Snape turned Harry toward a small, dim passageway Harry had noticed in the past but never had any reason to explore.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked, his giggles finally fading. He didn’t really care, but he thought maybe Snape was taking him somewhere to kill him quietly. It didn’t really matter. Dying now at the potions’ master’s hand, dying in the tournament, same difference really. At least if it happened now, it wouldn’t be a spectacle for the masses.

“My office. You need a calming draught, and I need to sort some things out. No one will look for you there.”

 _Yeah, because any student would have to be insane to go there willingly_. The deeper down the stairs they went, the colder the drafty passage got. It was too dim to really see any details on the stone walls, but he imagined that they descended under the lake, the stones go dewy with condensation. It smelled musty enough to make sense.

Eventually, they exited into a wider corridor Harry recognized as one that ran perpendicular to the one they took when going to potions. It was also the hallway Malfoy had led them to when Harry and Ron infiltrated the Slytherin common room. That felt like a very, very long time ago.

Snape stopped them before they reached the blank stretch of wall that guarded the common room’s entrance. A very old portrait of a very old man with a bulbous nose and bushy gray eyebrows glared at Harry before turning his attention to Snape.

“I’m allowing Mr. Potter access to my quarters this evening, Raginald. There is no need to inform the headmaster.”

Raginald—Raginald Edevane IV, Slytherin Head of House 996-1012, according to the little brass plaque at the center of the lower edge of his frame—nodded. “Very well, Severus.” His voice was rough and gravely, but surprisingly neutral. Without the further commentary the Fat Lady would have no doubt insisted on, the portrait swung forward.

Snape herded Harry into the room revealed behind the portrait, and Harry was surprised to find such a homey little room. The sofa was leather, with large, overstuffed cushions and a knitted blanket hanging over one arm. A matching armchair was pushed into the corner near the hearth. The stone floor was covered with plush rugs, and the cold stone walls were all hidden behind floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all of which were full to bursting. The fire in the hearth crackled to life at their entrance.

“Sit, Potter,” Snape ordered, waving him towards the sofa.

Harry obeyed. He watched Snape move towards a cabinet on the other side of the room. Within moments, he had produced a vial of a lavender liquid. “Drink this—all of it.”

Harry did, pleasantly surprised at the flavor—sweet chamomile tea with a light chocolate aftertaste. All the muscles in his body loosened and relaxed, even though he hadn’t noticed they were tight before. His breath came out all at once, like a sigh that had been waiting all day to be let free. He collapsed back against the truly luxurious cushions at his back.

“Why do you keep that potion in here?” he asked. He hadn’t really meant to, but without his permission, his lips had started moving and the words had spilled out into the air between them. He expected to be embarrassed by the unintentional question, but he wasn’t. It was like his usually too-close-to-the-surface emotions had taken a break and couldn’t be bothered to come as usual. Harry couldn’t say he minded. Therefore, it made perfect sense to continue on. “I mean, most of your potions are stored by the potions classroom, in that big storage closet with the threatening sign posted. So why keep the calming draughts here?”

Snape raised one arched eyebrow at Harry’s slumped form. Harry tried to mimic the expression back at the professor, but he couldn’t control his eyebrows individually, so both went up. That just meant it was doubly meant, right?

“Because most students desperate enough to disturb me in my quarters usually need help calming themselves from whatever hormone-driven melodrama they’ve found. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see what’s being done about your place in the tournament. You will stay here. And you will not touch anything.”

Snape was oddly talented at making his eyebrows threatening. Harry promptly imitated a statue—the non-magical variety, that is—to demonstrate his obedience. With a sigh that very clearly stated that he did not trust Harry but also didn’t have the time to come up with an alternative plan, Snape left, back through Raginald Edevane IV’s portrait.

Once the portrait closed behind him, Harry broke his statue imitation. Usually, he would have been up in a moment to poke through Snape’s bookshelves and cupboards to find whatever he was hiding—because there was no way he wasn’t hiding something. But for once, Harry felt no compulsion to snoop. Snape wasn’t threatening him, so he felt perfectly content to just sit and wait for the potions’ master’s return. He kicked off his shoes, grinning at the soft _shush- shush_ they made in thick pile of the carpet when they landed. Then he spun himself so he could lie down properly. The sofa was too short though, so his knees nested on the far arm, and his lower legs dangled down the side of the little couch. He kicked his socked feet happily humming a silly tune the twins and come up with for a rather crude limerick they had written one night instead of doing homework.

He was contemplating the stones above his head—they weren’t all one flat gray like he had always assumed. They were mostly gray, of course, but they also had waves of a sort of tan color going over parts of them and ribbons of purplish tying everything together. On top of all that, they were all speckled, like someone had painted them with glue and thrown sand at it. Or maybe they already had the sand inside them with they were cut. That probably made more sense—when Raginald Edevane’s protract opened with a bang and a startled yelp from the frame’s sole occupant.

“Severus! Severus, where are you?”

Harry knew that voice. Wedging himself up on his elbows, he got just high enough to look over the sofa cushions. “Hi, Draco.”

The blond head ceased its yelling for the absent professor and swiveled in his direction. “Potter? What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

“Snape put me down here while he went to investigate this latest death trap. What are you doing down here? And why are you calling him ‘Severus’? I’m pretty sure he’d turn me into potions ingredients if I called him by his first name. But only the gross pickled ones he doesn’t actually use except to scare students in detention. Because he’d probably think I’d ruin a potion just for being in it.”

“Morgana, Potter, are you drunk?” Draco asked incredulously.

“I don’t think so? Not unless Snape spiked the calming potion he gave me with firewhiskey or something, but I don’t think he did. The alcohol would react poorly with the valerian root, because they’d over-depress the drinker’s central nervous system. Also, Snape doesn’t seem like the kind of professor that would share his liquor with a student.”

Draco gaped at him.

“What? Has he shared his liquor with you? Will you give me some?”

“What? No! Of course not. Severus barely drinks at all, so he certainly wouldn’t encourage underage drinking. It’s just that you’re the worst babbler I’ve ever seen when you’re all drugged up.”

Harry hummed. “Yeah, it feels nice. But!” He had started to let himself fall back into the embrace of the sofa cushions, but he shot up again. “You never answered my questions! Why are you down here, and why do you get to call him ‘Severus’?”

Rolling his eyes, Draco moved from the doorway to take a seat in the armchair near the fireplace. Harry collapsed gratefully back down on the sofa now that he didn’t have to crane to see the other boy. “You know that I don’t actually have to answer you, right? I’m not like all your little sycophants.”

“That’s nice of you.” Harry let his eyes drift close. “I wish they weren’t like that either.”

“’They’ who?”

“The sycophants.”

“Huh.”

Harry could feel Draco’s eyes on him. He turned his head and opened his own eyes to meet Draco’s stare. Draco stared at him as if he were searching for something important. Harry wasn’t sure if he found it, because he had gone back to examining the stone ceiling. After a long minute—or maybe longer, or maybe less; Harry wasn’t keeping track—Draco said, “I’m here because I wanted to interrogate him about your spot in the tournament. And I’m allowed to address him with familiarity in private because he’s my godfather, sort of.”

“How does someone ‘sort of’ be your godfather? I mean, it’s not like Sirius who is my godfather but was in prison my whole life, is it? Or does that make Sirius my ‘sort of’ godfather too?”

“You actually met Black then? After he escaped, I mean.” Draco leaned forward, his eyes glued to Harry’s face.

Harry considered telling the other boy the whole story of that night in the Shrieking Shack but decided against it. He didn’t actually trust Draco, after all. He just wasn’t bothered by him at the moment. “That’s not what I said. I just heard that he’s my godfather while I was eavesdropping down at the Three Broomsticks. Now, stop changing the subject.”

Draco slumped back. “Severus isn’t legally my godfather. His family doesn’t have a high enough standing, and he’s—well, he’s not poor exactly, but he’s not well off either. So on my birth certificate, my godfather is Adair Avery. But he’s been in Azkaban since—since I was a baby. So, Severus kind of took over the godfather stuff so that I wouldn’t be missing out.”

“Really?” Harry asked around a yawn. “That’s nice of him. What counts as godfather stuff?”

“Er, I don’t know. Christmas presents and birthday gifts, for one. He used to take me out on outings when I was little, and he came to stay at the manor with me last summer when my parents when on holiday just the two of them. He always visits on the holidays, even though he hates the big parties my mother throws. He usually doesn’t stay long, but he always comes to talk to me before he leaves. And during the summer’s he’ll visit me then, too. Everyone says he’s a terrible teacher, but when there’s not a whole class full of students, and when his students actually care about the topic, he’s amazing. He got me my first potions set when I was eight, and he taught me all sorts of tips. Plus, I’ve learned a lot more Defense Against the Dark Arts from him than from any of the crap professors we’ve had here.”

Harry mumbled, “Remus was pretty good.” His eyes had drifted shut again without his permission, and he couldn’t quite drag forth the will to open them.

“Didn’t he try to eat you at the end of last year?” Draco drawled.

“’t was n’acciden’.”

“Well that makes it all better!”

“Exactly! Usually it’s on purpose. Anyways, your godfather sounds cool.”

“He is. Potter?” Harry rolled his head back in Draco’s direction, but he still didn’t open his eyes. “How did you get your name in the Goblet?”

“Didn’t,” Harry insisted. He felt his face scrunch up into a vague sort of scowl. “Don’t want to compete. But if someone wasn’t trying to kill me, it wouldn’t be Hogwarts, would it?”

“Yeah right. I bet you loved it. The adventure of it all is all very Gryffindorish.”

Harry rolled his head away and pressed his face into a pillow by his head. Muffled only a little, he said. “The Hat was right. Should’a let it put me in Slytherin. Maybe then everyone would stop trying to kill me.”

The was a long moment of silence. Then, Draco said, “I think you had better go to sleep before you say something you regret.”

Half-heartedly, Harry shrugged. “Prob’ly already did. G’night, Draco.”

“Good night, Potter.”


	2. Chapter 2

When Severus finally returned to his quarters an hour and a half after he left them, he expected to find one of two scenarios. First, Potter could be gone, having fled again off into the night. If Potter had somehow stuck out the wait—which wasn’t impossible, but Severus expected it would be down to pure stubbornness over actual patience—he expected to find the boy in the middle of a mess of his own making.

He would enjoy taking points from the boy after the crisis meeting that he had just had.

Instead, he found Potter asleep on his couch, a nasally little snore coming from his direction. Even more oddly, Draco was curled into the armchair adjacent to the sofa. He had retrieved one of the many tomes from Severus’s bookshelves. Now, he stuck a bookmark to mark his place knowing Severus did not abide dog-eared books—Severus had trained his godson well—and set the book aside.

“Did you knock him unconscious?” Severus asked his godson seriously. Potter’s position was rather haphazard.

Draco snorted. “No. We literally just talked for, I think, the first time since we met. He’s far more agreeable when he’s drugged up. He’s a babbler on calming potion, by the way.”

“Of course he is,” Severus sighed. For about ninety-six-point-seven percent of the wix population, a calming draught did exactly what it said on the tin. Most described something like a pane of glass between them and their emotions. They were still perfectly aware of what they were feeling, but they also weren’t affected by those emotions. However, for the remaining three-point-three percent of the population, it also shut down their brain-to-mouth filter. Potter did not need magical assistance to be even more of an idiot.

“What did you need?” Severus asked his godson. Potter looked cold and Severus considered covering him with the blanket Minerva had gifted him his first Christmas as Slytherin’s head of house. However, he saw the torn-up and filthy muggle sneakers casually abandoned in the middle of the room and decided that the boy really didn’t look that chilly after all.

“I actually just came down to see what if Potter was actually going to be allowed to compete. I didn’t think I’d actually find him here.”

Severus sighed. “Well, since he is here, it would hardly be polite of us to discuss the matter without him. Wake him, will you?”

Draco wrinkled his nose, but did as his godfather bid him, moving from his seat to prod at Potter’s shoulder. While Draco was out of the armchair, Severus took a seat in it, ignoring the baleful glare Draco sent him when he realized the trick. Growling, he poked the sleeping boy harder. “Potter. Potter, wake up you lazy git!”

With a low groan, Potter opened his eyes, blinking them in confusion at the boy standing above them. “Draco. I’m tired. Le’me sleep, will you?” He rolled over to shove his head in the back cushions, but Severus was having none of it. He would not keep two dramatic boys in his private quarters any longer than he had to.

“Mr. Potter, you have slept quite enough. We need to discuss your place in the tournament.”

Potter shot up, eyes wide as he stared at Severus as if he had quite forgotten just whose quarters he was napping in.

“Er, yes, professor. Sorry.”

With a mild sneer at Potter, Draco took a seat on the sofa where Potter’s head had been. Potter side-eyed him, but didn’t actively protest his presence, which surprised Severus. The calming draught should had been out of Potter’s system by now, but with as susceptible to it as he apparently was, perhaps not.

“So, er, what did you all decide, sir?” Potter asked. His fists were clenched tightly in his lap around handfuls of his mussed robes.

“Professor Moody suspects that someone used magic to convince the goblet that you belonged to a fourth school—from which you, of course, were the only applicant. Crouch insists that the Goblet’s selection represents a binding magical contract and that you must compete. Dumbledore, in all his wisdom,” Draco snorted as Severus would like to, “has agreed and decided that you must continue on.”

Potter sputtered. “But surely, I can’t be held to a contract I didn’t sign. That’s fraud, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Severus murmured. In fact, he was a little surprised at the boy’s insight. He wouldn’t have expected it from the brash, bumbling little hero. From the pocket of his robe, he pulled a duplicate of the scrap of parchment the Goblet had spat out with Potter’s name on it. After more than three years of grading the boy’s assignments, he recognized the wobbling, scratchy writing, but he passed it to Potter for his inspection anyways. “Is this your handwriting?”

Potter took the paper with his brow furrowed. “Yes, but…I didn’t, I swear I didn’t.”

“I suspect, Mr. Potter, that someone ripped that from an assignment you turned in for one of your classes.” The parchment was torn close to the bottom edge of Potter’s name as if to carefully exclude the class title, which was usually required just below the student’s name.

“So anyone could have stolen it at put it in,” Potter sighed in dejection.

“Not necessarily,” Draco spoke up. Severus was surprised he had lasted so long and made a mental note to find some way to reward him with some extra points soon. “Dumbledore put the age line around the goblet, so it had to be someone who is seventeen years old or older.”

“So just any of the seventh years, some of the sixth years, any of the professors, any of the officials, or any of the visiting schools. Of the people who generally want to kill me, that really only eliminates you, Malfoy.”

Draco sneered at him, though if Severus looked very closely, he saw some disappointment in his godson’s expression, too. He tried not to look closely. “Surely it wasn’t a professor, scarhead.”

Potter rolled his eyes. “A professor has tried to kill me or has nearly killed me at least once every year I’ve been here so far.” Dejectedly, he slumped back into the sofa in a sloppy manner. “Honestly, if I had any self-preservation instincts, I would have just decided to homeschool at this point. But then I think Petunia might try to kill me for real, so maybe not.”

If Severus had been drinking something, he would have spit it out. As it was, he choked on air and fell into an impressive coughing fit. Draco raised a hand as if to help him, but Severus waved him off. “Petunia?” he ground out between drags of air. “Petunia Evans?”

Potter had not looked so confused in the entire time Severus had known him, not even when he bungled the worst of his potions. “Yeah? I mean, she’s Petunia Dursley now, but Evans was her maiden name.”

“Dear god, tell me you don’t live with that horrible woman.”

Potter looked away, which was answer enough.

“Who the hell is Petunia Evans?” Draco asked looking back and forth between Severus and the Potter boy.

Neither of them spoke for a long minute, but finally Potter answered in the smallest, quietest voice Severus had ever heard from him. “She’s my aunt.”

Severus had always had a very specific image of Harry Potter in his mind, and he had never seen any reason for it to change. Potter Jr would be just like his father, spoiled by elderly relatives who doted on him, his every whim and want provided for. He would be taught by the best tutors about wizarding history and culture, about the fundamentals of various kinds of magic, to give the boy hero of the wizarding world a strong foundation should he ever be called upon to save them all again, as Dumbledore insisted he would be. Dumbledore had told Severus that all this was so, that Potter was well cared for and loved by the relatives who raised him, that he would be trained in everything he needed to know. Severus had believed him, like a fool, even when he felt the faint ache in the magic that bound him to protect the child. Severus had simply thought that it was his own dissatisfaction in having had to make the vow that was fueling that ache.

Now though, he boy before him was taking on a new shape. When Severus had known Petunia when they were children, she had already been beginning to hate magic and those who practiced it, and the hate only grew each year. He had no reason to believe it would have faded after her sister’s death. And a magical child under her dubious care had no chance at a warm, nurturing upbringing, nevermind a spoiled one.

Potter always rushed into adventures, and Severus had always assumed he did so so that he could rake in the glory, lord it over his classmates. But maybe, it was because he didn’t trust any of the adults around him to solve the problems that he saw around him.

And when he jutted his chin out like he did now, Severus had always assumed that it was arrogance fueling his stubbornness. But maybe, it was as simple as an unwillingness to be knocked down again paired with the knowledge that if he was knocked down, he would just pull himself back up again anyways. God and Merlin knew that attitude had saved Severus in his own childhood.

Severus slumped back into the high-backed chair and put his head in his hands.

“Professor, how do you know my aunt?”

Severus did not want to answer, but he could see no way around it. “We grew up near each other as children, just a few streets away from one another.”

“Does that mean you knew my mother?” The eagerness in the boy’s voice, more childlike than Severus had ever heard it, was like an icepick to the gut.

“Yes. Yes, I knew your mother. However,” he held up a hand before the boy could interrupt, “that is not what we’re discussing tonight.”

The boy subsided, but the glint in his eye told Severus that this was not the last he would be hearing about it.

“The headmaster and ministry representative have decreed that you will participate in the tournament, though no one else is happy about it. The first trial has been set for the 24th of November, but as the trial is to be a test of daring, there is to be no other information given. You are not to receive any help from professors, classmates, or anyone else prior to the event, and you won’t be allowed to take anything with you other than your wand.”

“Which of course means that every champion is going to be getting help from their professors and headmasters,” Draco observed.

Severus inclined his head. “Most likely.”

“How is that fair? Potter has half as much education as the other three students. How do they expect him to face the same trials? Especially since the other students that were chosen are supposed to be the very best the school has to offer!”

“Exactly. I’m just a malicious clerical error. They can’t actually expect me to compete. Why can’t I just sit it out?”

It was odd to see the two boys agreeing on anything, but Severus refused to comment on it in case the boys realized what they had done and got into a fight strong enough to wreck his quarters, just to put the world back into balance.

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of a ‘magically binding contract,’ Mr. Potter,” Severus said. Draco winced, but Potter just shook his head, frowning slightly.

“Because the name put into the goblet was written by your hand, the goblet has a sample of you, of your magic. And a magically binding contract quite literally binds your magic. If you go against the contract you signed—willingly or otherwise—the goblet will take your magic.”

“So I’ll be a squib, like Filch? I could handle that. I didn’t even know magic existed until I was eleven.”

There was so much wrong in that statement, but Severus focused on the most immediate matter for now.

“Magic is integral to your very being, Mr. Potter. It runs through your blood down to the very marrow of your bones, and it is in your every cell. Having your magic ripped from your body is likely not something that you could ‘handle.’”

“You would die,” Draco said bluntly but softly. “Even if you did somehow manage to survive, it’s like having your soul sucked from you, except infinitely more painful.”

Potter’s usually tan skin had turned unnaturally milky. “Okay,” he said, sounding strangled. “So, I have to go to the competitions, and I have to compete.”

“Yes, I believe so,” Severus agreed. “However, you don’t have to compete to win. You only have to compete to survive. The others, they will be showing off their power, their skill. Don’t bother with any of that. Don’t be a showman. Just survive.”

“Survive. Yeah. I can—I can do that.” Potter nodded compulsively, but his voice was shaky.

Draco chuckled. “Exactly. Be Harry Potter, the-boy-who-just-won’t-die-already.”

Potter snorted in return, Draco’s snideness knocking the doomed expression form him. “Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Valerian root information: This is all true; valerian is a natural sedative used for sleep disorders, such as insomnia, and has also been used for treating stress and anxiety (though its affect on those issues hasn’t been as widely studied and therefore hasn’t yet been totally proven). Because of its sedative affects, it should never be taken with other depressants, such as alcohol. (I know this note is technically for chapter 1, but AO3 won't let me leave chapter-specific notes on chapter 1 :( )


	3. Chapter 3

It was late, and Severus was not used to entertaining teenagers at this hour, nor did he care to, so he sent both boys to their dorms.

He was therefore quite perturbed when less than an hour later, Potter was back, looking even more upset than he had when his name had been called out of the goblet. Now, his face was streaked with tears that hadn’t been wiped away nearly well enough, and his cheeks and eyes were red. His clothes were even more disheveled than usual, and his hands were scraped. There was a bruise blooming on his left cheek. Severus sighed and waved the boy in.

“What happened?” he asked, immediately moving to the cupboard he had retrieved Potter’s earlier calming draught from. He considered grabbing the boy another one, but considering how sensitive to it he was, that might not be wise. If the boy became hysterical again, though, Severus might be forced to give him another half dose. Instead, he found some diluted dittany and a mild bruise salve.

“They didn’t believe me,” Potter said quietly. “I didn’t expect everyone to believe me, but I thought my friends at least wouldn’t…”

Severus waved him to take a seat, and Potter did, holding up his scraped palms for Severus’s inspection only when prompted to do so. “What happened next?” Severus asked. Carefully, he dabbed some dittany on the scratches and watched them carefully has they healed over. They were minor but watching Potter’s hands meant that he didn’t have to watch his face.

“Gryffindor was throwing a party when I got there,” Potter said dully. “Everyone was congratulating me, asking me how I did it. They said that at least there was a Gryffindor now, like there always has to be a Gryffindor or something. They kept trying to feed me or give me drinks and stuff. But finally, I got upstairs, and I thought at least that I could talk to my friends, that we could figure out what to do, how to survive this, like we always do, but…”

“But…” Severus prodded, turning his attention to the bruise on the boy’s cheek.

“But I didn’t even see Hermione, and Ron, he didn’t believe me. He was angry that I hadn’t helped him put his name in too, and he kept saying that I was lying about it. He said that since I hadn’t gotten in trouble, that I should come clean. I told him, before all of this, that I didn’t want to compete. That I didn’t see why anyone would want to compete, but he doesn’t believe me. I called him stupid, kind of, and he shoved me, so I shoved him back. It sort of escalated, and he punched me. I fell, and he stepped toward me like he was going to hit me again, so I just ran. I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Understandable. However, you can’t simply hide in my quarters until everything goes back to normal, you know.” He finished smoothing the salve on his cheek. “Leave that there for five minutes, and then you can clean it off.”

“Thanks, sir. And I know I can’t hide here forever, but I can’t go back. Please, there must be somewhere….”

“Potter, I cannot allow a student to reside outside of the dormitories, not even you. Surely, the situation with your friend is not so dire.”

Potter looked down, absently reaching hand up to scratch at the already drying and no doubt itchy salve. Severus batted his hand away from his face. “Stop that.”

“Sorry, sir,” Potter mumbled. He refused to meet Severus’s eye, and Severus wondered if something more serious than a tussle between friends had happened.

“Mr. Potter, is there something else? If you have a reason to be concerned for your safety—”

“No, sir, it’s nothing. Like you said, just an argument. It’ll blow over in no time.”

Severus didn’t quite believe the boy but having seen his little trio survive obstacle after obstacle for the more than three years they had been at school, he doubted a little jealousy would break them up for good. “Very well. Then I think that you should return to Gryffindor Tower, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Potter heaved himself up, and Severus saw him to the door.

He held the door open for the boy. “Don’t forget to rinse that salve off when you get to your room. Overexposure could cause irritated skin.”

“Yes, sir, I will. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Potter.”

* * *

Harry did not return to his room. He headed in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, but instead of taking the stairs all the way to the corridor leading to the Fat Lady’s portrait, he stepped off a landing early. There were plenty of small classrooms down the dead-end hallway, but no one used them for classes. Apparently, none of the teachers had wanted their learning spaces too close to the rowdy and often thunderously loud Gryffindors. Because of that, the rooms were all empty. Students had no need to wander this way, and even most of the portraits had abandoned their frames for more interesting areas of the castle. The only reason the rooms weren’t gathering dust and cobwebs was the elves’ superior cleaning skills.

Harry crept all the way to the last door on the left, whispering a spell so that the door wouldn’t creak on its hinges and alert a passing ghost. Once inside, he locked the door and looked around him. The room had been mostly cleared of furniture, though a few wooden chairs sat in a cluster in one corner. The lone, narrow window gave the room only the slimmest sliver of moonlight and faced out toward the greenhouses. The room was cold with nowhere to light a fire, and despite its relatively clean state, it was unwelcoming.

It was perfect.

He wouldn’t have to stay in the tower, but no one outside the tower would know about it because he would still be walking from the correct direction every morning. They had no reason to look for him in this nearly forgotten corridor though, so his sanctuary would be safe. In the morning, he would even look up some simple defensive wards to use around it to keep people away. If anyone saw what he was researching, he would just say it was for the tournament.

Harry transfigured one of the chairs into a bed and waved it into the corner furthest from the window. Though almost no one flew their brooms in the direction—Sprout only gave harsh punishments to those who endangered her plants, and a quidditch accident was just begging for a month of chores with Filch—there was no need to take chances on someone noticing a bedroom where it shouldn’t be. He took his shrunken trunk from his pocket and set it at the end of the bed before enlarging it. A couple of Dudley’s old sweatshirts transfigured nicely into sheets, a pillow, and a comforter. Altogether, it was a nicer room than the one he had at the Dursleys, even if it was a bit chilly.

He quickly changed into pajamas and prepared for bed, rubbing the flaking salve off his face, and got into bed under the warm covers. The bed wasn’t nearly as soft and comfortable as the one five floors up in his dormitory with the other fourth year boys, but it was much better than having to share a room with Ron.

He hadn’t told Snape the whole truth, and he knew the professor knew it. But he couldn’t stand to tell a man who until this very evening had seemed to loath even the concept of his existence how broken he felt at his first friend’s betrayal.

It had been obvious all year that there was tension between them. Ron was upset about Harry’s money, as if Harry had wanted it in the first place. Sharing with Ron only seemed to grate at the redhead’s pride. On top of that, there was Ron’s thirst for glory and Harry’s craving for obscurity. Harry remembered first year, when he had found the Mirror of Erised and tried to show Ron the family had never known, but Ron had only seen himself, loaded with honor and accolades. He wondered if that should have been a sign that they couldn’t last. They valued very different things.

Harry knew—or at least he assumed; he didn’t exactly have much previous experience with friendships—that friends often had different goals in life, and it didn’t hurt anything. Friends could go into wildly different careers, start families in different towns, live in different income brackets, and still meet up for lunch on weekends. But having such different values was bound to pull you in different directions.

Harry could still hear Ron’s words banging around in his skull, waking every insecurity he thought he had finally ditched. _You’re just an attention-seeking git! You don’t care who you have to step on to get your way! You ruin everything you touch! You’d be nothing if it weren’t for your stupid scar!_

Stuck in Little Whinging without a hope of escape, Harry had heard the same from Vernon and Petunia over and over again for years, until he had believed it. He took too much food and too much space and too much money from their hardworking family, even skinny and tucked away in his cupboard. He was a delinquent and couldn’t be trusted around honest folks. He was dangerous to Dudley, the neighborhood kids, and his classmates, so he wasn’t allowed friends. He would never amount to anything, just like his good-for-nothing parents.

As he had grown, he had realized that how he was treated wasn’t normal, but he had believed them when they said it was for his own good. And then he had believed them when they said that keeping him cut off from everyone else was for their own good, to protect them from him. Only in the wizarding world had he been able to shed those hateful words and become something good. Not because he was the Boy-Who-Lived, but because he had friends and kids he was friendly with if not close to and teachers who liked him. He had been able to help the school by beating Quirrell. He had been able to save Ginny by stabbing the basilisk and beating Tom Riddle. He had even been able to save Buckbeak from the executioners axe and Sirius from the dementor’s kiss. That all meant something, and he had used it to buoy himself through summers full of the Dursleys’ verbal abuse.

But it was all still there, just waiting to tie itself back onto him, whispering all the things he had been told to hate most about himself, all the things he had eventually agreed were worth hating. And Ron, who had stood up for him against Malfoy and Snape and the whole school was the one to tear down the carefully constructed walls he had built to keep himself safe from all that poison.

Harry wasn’t sure he could forgive him for that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I didn't get it up this past weekend like I was hoping, but here's a short update. Also, apologies for Viktor's accent. I never know how to write accents without blowing them out of proportion. Let me know what you think! x Chip

When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, he was buried up to the nose in his blanket, curled up against the chill of the room. For a moment, he attributed the sinking, miserable feeling in his gut to the cold before he took in the room around him and remembered just why he was avoiding Gryffindor tower. He dressed quickly and used a spell to clean his teeth before creeping out of his new room and into the hall. He made sure to lock the door before leaving and hoped that would be good enough for the time being. Most Hogwarts students past their first year knew that if a door was locked, you were probably better off just leaving it alone.

Out on the stairs, he ran into some Gryffindors heading down for a late breakfast. He didn’t know their names, but they clapped for him and patted him on the back as he tried to hurry past their group. He had been intending to go down to the Great Hall to get some breakfast, but he dreaded facing the other Gryffindors if they were all going to act like this.

Instead, he detoured to the library, where he knew no one would look for him. Besides, it was a Sunday morning, early enough in the term still that not even Hermione was likely to be camped out. Madam Pince glared at him suspiciously when he wandered in, which he thought was fair enough considering he usually only came in here when Hermione was dragging him by the elbow, but she said nothing and allowed him peace as he entered her maze of bookcases. Between the sections for simple spellcrafting and wizarding law of the 1400s, Harry found four shelves worth of tomes on modern defensive wards. He emptied half of the first shelf and carried the precariously teetering pile out to one of the more out-of-the-way tables against the north wall.

The first several books went over his head and left him feeling rather dizzy. Apparently, warding usually required a background in runes, and Harry wondered if it was too late to change his electives. Divination had never been particularly fun anyways, what with the all the premonitions of death and maiming.

Irritated, he started searching the library for a primer on runes, but that was too broad a category to find exactly what he was looking for. He found a section on ancient runes of various languages, a section on the importance of numbers in runes, an entire wall on the apparently hidden rune representing the number seven, a small section debating whether or not runes were related to wand movements especially when wix first started using wands, but nothing simply explaining what runes were and how he could use them. Giving in, he hesitantly approached Madam Pince’s desk. “Yes?” she asked archly.

“Er, I’m looking for a beginner’s book on runes?”

“What kind?” Madam Pince always had a sharp, abrasive voice that she used to scare those who mistreated books in her library, but for once, the harsh, disdainful tone was absent.

“I’m not exactly sure, which might be the problem. I was researching warding, but a lot of it seems to be heavily based on runes.”

“Hmm.” She stood abruptly and strode to the table he had been working at. After a moment inspecting the books he had been stumbling through, she headed into the maze, obviously knowing exactly what she was looking for and where it would be. It turned out to be on the shelf directly across from the one that held the books he had taken. Scanning the shelf for only a moment, she removed a book and passed it to him. “Elder Futhark runes. This is the oldest runic language we have found, and therefore is regarded as the most powerful by many. Most wards, even modern wards, are primarily based on this system.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Harry said as he took the book gratefully.

She nodded at him sharply but said nothing before returning to her desk. Harry returned to his table and pushed the other books out of the way so he could read focus on the book of runes. After only a few minutes, he had to get out some parchment to take notes. The runes themselves weren’t difficult—there were only twenty-four of them, and they were all fairly distinct from one another—and he figured he could have them all memorized within a week. However, the constructions got complex. Turning a rune the wrong way round could change the entire meaning of the thing. Pairing one rune with another changed the meaning of them both. It was incredibly frustrating, but at the same time, it made his fingers itch at the need to crack the language.

Harry was so invested in his work that he forgot his surroundings until someone dropped into the seat across from him. Flinching in his seat, he flailed a little, holding his quill out like he planned to hex the newcomer with it. Viktor Krum raised an eyebrow at him. Harry’s whole face flushed a deep red.

“Sorry about…er, hi,” Harry finally said lamely.

“Hello,” Krum said, his accent heavy and his voice was smoother than Harry had expected the rough looking seeker to sound. Harry could see a smirk creeping in at the corner of the man’s mouth. “I did not expect to see you here.”

Harry frowned. Krum didn’t know him, and the older teen had only been in the castle a couple days. How would he know where Harry would most likely be?

“I mean no offence. I only thought you vould still be celebrating vith your, ah, house?” He stumbled over the last word as if he wasn’t sure it was quite right.

“Oh, no, I’m not celebrating. Like I said last night, I didn’t put my name in.”

“No? It is a great honor to be selected, especially for one so young. There is quite a lot of prize money for the vinner, too.” Everything Krum said sounded correct, like something Bagman or some other adult would be saying, but Krum’s tone was off somehow, though Harry couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Harry shook his head at the seeker. “I’ll say it as much as you want; I didn’t put my name in. I didn’t want to compete. My life has been dangerous enough, thanks.”

Krum hummed, and Harry felt like he had passed a test. “You disappeared last night, after your name vas called.” Harry waited for the seeker to demand to know where Harry had gone, but instead he said, “Ve did not know you had been selected until the adults came and told us. They vere all arguing about it, about vhether you should be allowed to compete. One of your professors said that someone might be trying to kill you.”

“I know.”

“Vell?”

“Well, what?”

“Do you think someone is trying to kill you?” Krum’s smirk had long since disappeared by now, and he was watching Harry with careful, prying eyes.

“Probably,” Harry said, and Krum’s eyes widened slightly. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried to kill me. It wouldn’t even be the second or the third time.”

He thought Krum would grill him further or would express doubt that Harry was really in so much danger. Instead, Krum nodded and thrust his hand across the table. “I vish you the best of luck. And please, call me Viktor.”

Fumbling a little, Harry shook Krum’s—Viktor’s—hand. “Please call me Harry, then.”

“Very vell, Harry.”

* * *

“So, what do the others think of me?” Harry asked eventually. Both had fallen back into their own studies, Viktor taking textbooks from his bag that were written in Cyrillic and Harry refocusing on runes. However, Harry could only focus for so long, and eventually his attention had strayed back to his tablemate.

“Vhat?” Viktor asked.

“Fleur and Cedric? How much do they hate me for taking the attention from them?”

“Ah, of course. Vell, Fleur is very angry and vas very loud about it. I think she argued about your selection more than either of our headmasters did. Cedric vas quieter, but I think he is still quite upset about it.”

“I’m not surprised. Hufflepuff, the house that he’s in, hardly ever gets any glory; this was their time to shine. They’ll think I’m trying to steal it for myself.”

Viktor hummed and idly turned a page in his textbook, eyes skating over the text quickly.

“What about you?” Harry asked the Bulgarian. “What do you think of me in all this?” Viktor didn’t seem angry with him, and he seemed relatively calm about the whole thing, if a little curious. Harry thought Viktor had been genuine when he wished Harry luck.

Using a finger to mark his place on the page, Viktor looked at Harry with his head tilted to one side. Finally, he said, “I am a very good seeker.”

Harry nodded. The man—teen—had just caught the snitch at the Quidditch World Cup. _Very good seeker_ didn’t even start to cover it.

“Part of vhat makes me a good seeker is that I am very good at reading people. I know vhen my opponent is feinting. I know when they haff been told to vait a vhile to catch the snitch. I know vhen that time is running out, and I know vhen they’re desperate.”

“So you read me?” Harry surmised.

“Nye, no.” He smirked at Harry. “I read Draco Malfoy.”

Harry just blinked at the Bulgarian. The Durmstrang students had continued to sit with Slytherin since their arrival which would, of course, continue to put Viktor in fairly close proximity to Draco.

Malfoy had been there last night, Harry remembered. They had talked together in Snape’s rooms, and Malfoy had been shockingly decent to him, even when Harry had been under the influence of the calming potion. If anything, he had seemed almost concerned for Harry. But that didn’t mean that their little truce would carry on outside of that room that night, did it?

“Malfoy, he complains about you often,” Viktor continued. “He has since I arrived. He says that the professors favor you, that you break the rules and no one cares, that people follow you around like sheep. He vas saying all that again this morning, but he vas lying this time. I could tell, even if his friends could not.”

There was an odd churning in Harry’s stomach at Viktor’s declaration. It had sunk when Viktor had said that Draco’s cruel words had continued at breakfast, but Viktor’s observation that Draco had been lying filled his stomach with something warmer than butterbeer. On the whole, it all left him feeling nauseated, but pleasantly optimistic about it.

“So, I am thinking that something happened last night that convinced the boy who disliked you most in the school that you are not so bad. In light of the tournament, I am thinking that you somehow convinced him that you did not put your name in. And, as he vould not vant to belief you, vhatever you told him must haff been the absolute truth. Am I wrong?”

Dumbly, Harry shook his head.

“Good,” Viktor said and turned back to his textbook.

“Could you tell the others?” Harry asked “Fleur and Cedric, I mean? Maybe not about Dr—Malfoy, but about how you believe I didn’t enter. I don’t want to make enemies of them, but I doubt they will listen to me.”

Viktor hesitated. “I do not anticipate that I vill see them outside of the competition,” he admitted. “They say that this tournament is for the students to make friends, but at least among the champions—the truly competitive ones—I do not know if that is possible.” Harry slumped in his seat. Hufflepuff house would be surrounding their star right now. Fleur was unapproachable even before she was named champion. He doubted he would be able to anywhere near either of them to apologize. Viktor, seeing his disappointment nudged Harry’s foot with his own. When Harry looked back to him, Viktor promised. “If the opportunity arises, yes, I vill tell them that I believe you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did warn you that updates wouldn't be regular, but I still feel like I should say sorry. The holidays were a beast, and I feel like I'm still recovering from them. However, as an apology, you get 2 chapters tonight.

Eventually, Hermione tracked him down and, in a very un-Hermione fashion, dragged him from the library and out onto the grounds.

“Of course I believe that you didn’t put your name in, Harry,” she told him. They were walking the perimeter of the Black lake, taking advantage of the chilly weather that kept most everyone indoors. She had updated him on the castle gossip he had missed out on while in the library—as expected, the Hufflepuffs hated him, the Ravenclaws resented him, and the Slytherins sneered at the mention of his name (though the last was pretty much par for the course). The only pleased students in the entire castle was Gryffindor, with the notable exception of his best friend. “Ron is being ridiculous, but he’ll come around, you’ll see. For now, I think you should write to Sirius.”

“Hermione, I can’t write to Sirius. If he knows, he’ll just come running back to Hogwarts. And there are so many ministry officials running around the school that he’ll get caught for sure!”

“He’s going to find out anyways, you know. The Triwizard Tournament is a big deal; it will be in the papers and everything. Your involvement will probably be front page news.”

Harry slipped a bit on the muddy shore. He had not considered that. “But it’s just a school event, isn’t it? Surely no one can be that interested in what students are doing?”

“Think about it. Nearly every witch and wizard in the British Isles was educated here at Hogwarts, and even in the muggle world, it’s not uncommon for people to keep up with their alma mater. Added onto that, this is an international event. The wizarding world isn’t a big place, but countries are still very isolated from one another. Especially on the heels of the world cup, people will be curious about our magical neighbors. Finally, this is a tradition being resurrected after two hundred years. It’s incredibly dangerous and incredibly exciting, so of course the wider wizarding world of England is going to be interested in it, and so of course it’s going to be in the news. Therefore, of course Sirius is going to find out about it sooner or later even if you don’t tell him. And, if you don’t tell him yourself, I think he’ll be disappointed.”

Digging the toe of his worn sneakers into the muddy bank, Harry said, “I just don’t want him to do something to put himself in danger.”

Hermione looked at him critically. “That is the most hypocritical thing I have ever heard you say, Harry James Potter.”

Harry’s cheeks heated and he looked away. “This wasn’t my fault,” he muttered.

“Of course it wasn’t,” she agreed gently, nudging him until he started walking again. “However, the last three years of school are another story.”

“You know, you’ve been there the whole time, too!”

“Of course I have. I’m not going to let you get yourself killed if I can help it.” She sniffed so authoritatively that Harry couldn’t help but snicker at his friend. He was glad he still had one person on his side.

When they had finished the turn around the lake, they split up. Hermione wanted to go research past tournament tasks so they could get some sort of idea about what they should focus on. Harry agreed to return to his room and write to Sirius about his selection.

As he watched her run off with the admonition over her should to not forget to finish his homework—“This tournament is no excuse for slacking!”—he felt a little guilty that she thought he would be returning to Gryffindor Tower to write the letter. However, some needy little monster inside his chest had stopped him from revealing his sanctuary even to her. He doubted that it would be too long before the Gryffindors realized he was no longer residing with the rest of them, but he wasn’t eager to speed along that revelation either.

He returned to his little room, shivering when he entered. There was no hearth in the room, but there was a small alcove to one side. He shrugged and conjured some of the bluebell flames Hermione had perfected her first year and kept inside a jam jar. As long as none of his things got too close to the blue flames, they should be fine and keep the room toasty.

Settling onto his bed, he reluctantly started his letter.

_Dear Sirius,_

_I hope you’re doing well wherever it is that you are, and I need you to promise me to stay there, even after what I’m about to tell you._

_You asked me to keep you up to date about what’s happening this year, and I’m sure you thought it would mostly just be assignments and quidditch, and so did I. But the Triwizard Tournament is happening this year, and the Goblet of Fire picked me as the fourth champion (which really shouldn’t be fair at all—it’s the Triwizard Tournament after all). Anyways, I’m not sure how my name got into the goblet, because I didn’t put it in, but Dumbledore and the tournament officials all say that I have to compete anyways, so I can’t really get out of it._

_I know that you’ll be worried, but I don’t want you to come here. There’s a lot of ministry people here organizing everything, and it would be dangerous for you. Please, for me, stay safe._

Harry paused with his quill over the paper, a large drop of ink sliding off the tip to make a splotch on the page. He considered telling Sirius all about what had happened with Ron or even about the odd whatever-it-was with Snape and Draco, but he couldn’t quite find the words to describe the topsy-turvy change in alliances. So instead, he simply signed off and sealed the letter.

He took it to the owlery to use a school owl, much to Hedwig’s disapproval. “I’m sorry, girl,” he told her, trying to stroke her after the brown barn owl had already flown off. “You’re too recognizable.” He was glad he had remembered to bring some of her favorite treats, because he was pretty sure that was the only reason that she stayed within arm’s reach and allowed him to pet her. The snowy owl was very proud and did not like being passed over, and she had now problem expressing that displeasure by biting at his fingers harshly.

“Ow!” Maybe he shouldn’t have offered her those treats.

“Having trouble with your owl, Potter?” a sneering voice called from behind him.

Harry whipped around to see Draco Malfoy enter the owlery, thankfully lacking his usual lackeys. Ducking his head a little, Harry shuffled from one foot to the other, not sure how to respond. The two boys had communicated primarily in insults for the last three years. However, Draco looked more amused than antagonistic for once. After last night’s blunt honesty, though, he didn’t want to go back to being enemies, especially when he was already down a friend.

“Er, yeah, she’s a bit annoyed at me today,” he said, wincing at how awkward he sounded to his own ears. Draco smirked then turned away to coax an eagle owl down from his perch. The owl was beautiful but quite intimidating as it glared at Harry. He wondered idly if Draco had trained it to do that. After stroking and—oddly enough—cooing at his owl a bit, Draco tied a letter that was much thicker than Harry’s own had been to the bird’s leg and sent it off on its way. Noticing Harry watching him, Draco flushed lightly. “My mother worries, so I write to her every Sunday.”

“That’s nice,” Harry said. Draco seemed embarrassed by the fact that his mother wanted to hear from him, but Harry thought he would quite like someone to write to regularly.

Draco rolled his eyes at Harry’s bland statement. “The whole castle is talking about you, you know,” he said, changing the topic much to Harry’s relief, though he wasn’t particularly fond of the new topic.

“I figured,” Harry admitted. “I’ve been avoiding them. I’m hoping it will die down a bit before I have to face it.”

Draco just snorted as if that was a stupid expectation. “Well, you’ve done the opposite. You’ve missed both breakfast and lunch now, and people are more curious than ever. Some are saying you’ve been expelled or that you’ve run away. Others are saying that you’re a coward upset that you got caught.”

“What do you suggest I do?” Harry asked, gritting his teeth. There was no way to please these people.

“Go downstairs, be seen. Act like everything is normal. The more they see you, the less opportunity they’ll have to create rumors.”

“But what if they want to talk to me or something? Gryffindor tried to throw a bloody party last night.”

“Trust me, no one else will be celebrating you. Honestly, they’ll likely be too afraid of you to approach you.” The look Draco gave him told Harry that the other boy saw nothing worth being afraid of. “And if they are trying to talk to you, tell them to piss off. You don’t have to be polite all the time.”

“I can’t be mean to people, Draco.” Harry elbowed the other boy as they exited the owlery to start back towards the main part of the school. “It’s not their fault I was chosen, and they have every right to be upset.”

“It’s not your fault either, Golden Boy. You don’t have to shoulder their blame.”

With those parting words, Draco turned right, trotting down a stairway that would take him straight down to the dungeons. “See ya’, Harry,” he drawled with a lazy wave over his shoulder.

“Bye, Draco.”

Twenty minutes later, Harry found himself doing something he thought he would never do: taking Draco’s advice.

The Great Hall may be mainly used for mealtimes, but it was always open. There were several bowls of fresh fruit on each house table for anyone who got hungry between meals, and many students used the room as somewhere to study or chat with their friends from other houses. Harry had never had any need to visit the room outside of mealtimes because he didn’t really have friends in other houses, and he had a meager enough appetite as it was. However, for the first time, he found himself sitting at an empty stretch of the Gryffindor table working on the homework he and Ron had ignored the day before. No matter the odd new truce they had formed the night before, he doubted Snape would let him off easy on the essay about the properties of elderberries and elderberry bark in medicinal potions just because he had been summarily and unwillingly inducted into a death tournament. He had his reference books and supplies spread out in front of him to discourage anyone getting too close, but he could hear the other students in the room whispering about him.

Irritatingly, word about his location had apparently spread as several people came to the Great Hall seemingly for the sole purpose of gawking at him. Harry could feel their stares and hear the buzzing of their conversations as they pointedly didn’t point at him from their seats. But, as Draco had expected, no one dared approach him.

After a couple hours, Hermione joined him for dinner, describing everything she had been working on in the library that afternoon. It was a bit of a confusing monologue because it seemed that she had been reading about the tournament’s history, the most commonly used defense spells, advanced defense spells specifically created for aurors, and the history of house elves simultaneously. However, Harry did his best to pay rapt attention to the convoluted explanation because the other Gryffindors usually left Hermione alone when she was on a research rant. Besides, he really was very interested in the cockatrice that had maimed three of the judges in the 1792 tournament.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in my original draft, this was alternatively titled "He Didn't Kidnap Me (I Ran Away)" because I had planned for Harry to run away from Hogwarts after the first night. However, as I wrote, Harry just...didn't leave Hogwarts. Maybe he will at some point, but for now, it seems that the kid wants to stick around. Weird.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder, anything that is bolded comes directly from the book.

The next several days were exhausting. The other students may have kept their distance on Sunday, but classes were a whole other matter. His year mates had no problem whispering snide comments to him as they passed his desk or laughing at him when he made a mistake in class (which with all the stress of everything was becoming far common than usual). He kept telling them all that he hadn’t entered, but they didn’t believe him.

The Gryffindors too were in a snit with him because by Tuesday evening, they had finally realized he was no longer living in the tower. Several assumed that he was getting extra perks that he wasn’t sharing with them, but the prefects had found out that the faculty had no knowledge of Harry’s new lodgings and alerted them. Professor McGonagall had sat him down for a very stern conversation about the importance of student safety and the protection the dormitories offered students. Harry had nodded along silently to her lecture then returned to his room without a word.

Despite their efforts, no one had been able to find his little room. He hadn’t even told Hermione where it was, despite her assertion that, according to _Hogwarts: A History_ , students were not allowed to live outside of the designated dormitories.

Several people had tried to stalk him to find his room, but Harry had expected that. While he was still struggling to design his own wards, he had found a book with basic, predesigned rune strings. The one painted on the inside of his door kept it from being opened by anyone but him, and the runes he had painted onto the stones above his deserted corridor, small enough that no one would notice unless they too got on a broom and searched the ceilings, acted like the muggle repelling charm Mr. Weasley had told them about over the summer and kept everyone from noticing his corridor. Additionally, he never went anywhere without his invisibility cloak these days, so when he left his room each morning and returned each evening, it was always under the cloak so that no one could follow him. He simply appeared in the Entrance Hall each morning and disappeared from in front of the library each evening right before curfew. Unfortunately, this only infuriated the Gryffindors further.

With all of that boiling together, Harry was quite ready to hex them all by the time he trudged downstairs for Potions on Friday. Taking a secret passageway he had learned from the Marauders’ Map, he and Hermione beat the other Gryffindors to the dungeons and were faced with the Slytherins. Every one of them had a badge pinned to the front of their robes that read _Support CEDRIC DIGGORY—the REAL Hogwarts Champion!_ The red letters glowed making them impossible to miss.

 **“Like them, Potter?”** Draco asked. He had his head tilted arrogantly, but Harry caught his easily missed wink. **“And this isn’t all they do—look!”** He tapped the badge, and the letters changed green and reconfigured themselves to read _POTTER STINKS_. The Slytherins laughed loudly as if it really was a witty insult and not something a disgruntled toddler might come up with.

Next to him, Hermione was puffing up with rage, obviously about to give Draco a piece of her mind, but before she could, Harry butted in. “They’re brilliant! Think I could have one?”

The Slytherins stopped laughing and looked at him as if he had lost his marbles, which, to be fair, he might have. At this point, he just wanted to piss off everyone in the castle, and Draco had given him the perfect way.

“I mean, I do bathe regularly, so I’m pretty sure I don’t stink, but I absolutely agree with the rest of it. Have you got extras?”

Draco rolled his eyes so hard his entire head bobbled, but he dipped in hand in his bag and pulled out a badge that he flipped over in Harry’s direction. “What about you, Granger? Want one?” he asked Hermione.

She had one hand in front of her mouth, and to the Slytherins, it might have looked like she was shocked at their behavior, but Harry knew she was hiding a giggle. “Go on, Hermione,” Harry nudged as he pinned his new badge to be obnoxiously prominent on his chest. “It’s nothing I haven’t already been telling everyone. Except for the stinking thing. I smell great.” He did. With no access to the dorm showers, Harry had skulked around the castle under his invisibility cloak until he found the prefect baths and listened in on a sixth year Ravenclaw prefect saying the password. There were some really great smelling soaps in there that he had been making liberal use of for the last week. Today he smelled like sandalwood, and while he wasn’t entirely sure what that was, he liked it.

“Oh, all right,” Hermione sighed and held a hand out for the badge Draco already had ready. By the time the rest of the Gryffindors joined them, Harry and Hermione both had their badged pinned to their robes, and most of the Slytherins had changed their badges to read _POTTER STINKS_ as if they couldn’t bear to wear the same badge Harry did.

Ron’s face turned a mottled red to see the two Gryffindors wearing the Slytherin badges, but before he could say anything about them, Snape let them all into the classroom. The professor raised an eyebrow at the badges Harry and the Slytherins were wearing but said nothing.

The lesson on antidotes began, and Harry was taking diligent notes—for once, Snape was not angry at him, and he would rather like to keep it that way—but before they got very far into the lesson, there was a knock on the door. Colin Creevey stepped in and smiled widely at Harry before stepping up to the front of the room under Snape’s glare. The kid might be annoying, but Harry thought he was rather brave for getting that close to the dour Potions professor after interrupting class.

**“Yes?” said Snape curtly.**

**“Please, sir, I’m supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs.”**

The longer Snape stared at Colin, the more quickly the boy’s smile faded.

**“Potter has another hour of Potions to complete. He will come upstairs when this class is finished.”**

**“Sir—sir, Mr. Bagman wants him. All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs….”**

Having a flashback of Colin following him all over the school second year to get pictures of him doing everything from flying around the quidditch pitch to eating dinner, Harry shivered. “If I’m not really a champion, do I have to go?” Harry piped up. “I’m very, very interested in learning about antidotes. What if I need to be able to make one for a task? That seems more important than photographs.”

Several students from both sides of the class snickered at him, and the corner of Snape’s mouth twitched up into a smirk instead of a glower. Harry’s stomach sank.

“On the contrary, Mr. Potter. A photographic record of this historic tournament is quite vital,” Snape taunted. “You’ll make up the practical portion of today’s lesson this evening after dinner. Now go on; we can’t keep Mr. Bagman waiting, now can we?”

“Can’t we?” Harry muttered only loud enough that Hermione could hear him from the next seat over. He took as much time as he possibly could collecting his things, but soon he could stall no longer, and Colin hurried him from the room.

He mostly tuned Colin out as they walked, only listening enough to hear that it was the _Daily Prophet_ here taking pictures. Apparently, Hermione was right about everything, and this was going to be in the papers.

The room Colin led him to was small, another unused classroom—why were there so many unused classrooms in this school?—and it seemed that despite dragging his feet all the way from the dungeons, he was not the last to arrive. The other champions were already there, Fleur and Cedric chatting while Viktor slouched in a corner, but there were only three adults in the room while there were chairs set up for at least two more. Mr. Bagman was there, but Harry didn’t recognize the brightly dressed witch he was talking to or the man near her with the smoking camera.

Before Harry could join Viktor, Bagman noticed him in the doorway. **“Ah, here he is! Champion number four! In you come, Harry, in you come…nothing to worry about, it’s just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment—”**

Harry wasn’t sure how the weight of his wand had anything to do with the tournament, but he was distracted from Bagman’s explanation of the little ceremony by the distinctly predatory look the blonde witch next to him was giving him. She looked rather like she wanted to sink her crimson claws into him. Bagman introduced her and Rita Skeeter, and Harry recognized the name of the woman that had been smearing Mr. Weasley in the paper since the World Cup. He didn’t bother hiding his frown.

**“I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start? The youngest champion you know…to add a bit of color?”**

“I’m not a champion,” Harry said, and finally the adults seemed to notice the badge he wore. Carefully, he edged around Bagman and Skeeter further into the room and towards the champions who were all watching him curiously. “If you’ll excuse me—”

As he tried to make his getaway, a hand caught his arm in a tight grip. The woman’s long, painted nails were actually quite painful. “Now, now, Harry, it’s just a quick interview. My readers are very interested in—”

Harry yanked himself free and hoped Skeeter’s very sharp nails hadn’t damaged his sleeve. This woman was terrifying, and he considered hiding behind Viktor who had come closer during the exchange. “No, I don’t want to do an interview. I’m really very boring. Cedric would be much better! He’s the Hogwarts champion, you know, and a prefect and the Hufflepuff quidditch captain. Much more interesting than me. Excuse me!” He practically ran to where the three other teens now stood together. He inserted himself between Viktor and Cedric—it was the furthest spot from the glaring reporter, and as both boys were much taller and broader than him, Harry felt nicely shielded. They all gave him a look reminiscent of the Slytherins when he had put on his badge.

“What?” he asked defensively.

“You need training in media relations, Harry,” Viktor growled. Cedric snorted at the blunt words and even Fleur smiled a little, though she pursed her lips to try to hide it.

“I’m fourteen,” Harry whined. “I shouldn’t have need to deal with the media.”

“However, I have a feeling zat zis will not be ze last time you must talk to reporters,” Fleur said. She narrowed her eyes at him then flicked her wand. A curtain of magic surrounded the four of them, making the adults outside their circle look blurry. “Zey cannot hear us now. Viktor says zat you did not enter ze tournament willingly. Is zis true?”

Harry nodded fervently. “I swear I didn’t. I was looking forward to watching, not participating.”

“Yes, you’re making that very clear,” Cedric said. He flicked the badge on his chest, which had the unfortunate effect of changing the words to _POTTER STINKS_. Harry grimaced and quickly changed it back while the others laughed at him—or in Viktor’s case, smiled enough to look somewhat friendly. Fleur flicked her wand again and the magic separating them from Bagman and the others fell away just as Dumbledore, Karkaroff, and Madam Maxime walked in with Mr. Ollivander, the wandmaker.

It turned out that the wand weighing was not a wand weighing at all but rather a wand testing. Ollivander inspected each of their wands in turn before declaring them all fit for the competition. Harry was a little disappointed that Ollivander hadn’t decreed that his wand was unfit and therefore he was out of the competition. However, on second thought, they might have just made him get a new wand rather than letting him off.

Harry hoped that they were done then, but Bagman insisted on photographs. The group photos were difficult to stage what with Madam Maxime’s tall stature, Viktor’s camera shyness, the unnamed cameraman’s obsession with Fleur, and Skeeter’s obsession with Harry.

Then they insisted on individual shots too. Viktor and Cedric’s were rushed through, and the cameraman seemed quite happy to turn the whole thing into a photoshoot just for Fleur. Eventually, though, Skeeter elbowed the part-Veela out of the way and dragged Harry in for his pictures. Harry made sure that his badge was pinned high enough that they couldn’t easily crop it out. Viktor, Fleur, and Cedric smirked at him from behind the photographer’s shoulder, and in the end, Harry had a matching smirk in most of the resulting images.


	7. Chapter 7

Harry watched Snape at the professors’ table that evening at dinner, and as soon as the man stood to leave, Harry gathered up his things to follow after him. Had it been only a few weeks earlier, Snape likely would have just given him a zero for the practical portion of that day’s lesson, but instead, he had given Harry the opportunity to make the grade up by brewing the potion privately. Potions wasn’t his best subject, but he was determined to give the professor nothing to complain about this evening, so punctuality was important. Snape was obviously surprised to see Harry arriving so promptly, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he waved Harry over to a workstation at the front of the classroom—far from the one Harry usually skulked at in the back row of desks—and told Harry he would have one hour to finish the assigned antidote.

Collecting the ingredients quickly, Harry got to work, eager for perhaps the first time since he had walked into this classroom as an eleven-year-old, all bright-eyed and optimistic because _magic_.

He thought things were going quite well for once. He double and triple checked each set of instructions, using a spare pencil he had borrowed off Hermione to place a small tick in the margins next to each numbered step. He checked the temperature of the liquid simmering in the cauldron frequently, as the footnotes on the recipe suggested. This particular antidote had to be kept at a low temperature until just before the very last step when the powdered charcoal was added. However, Harry had a bad habit of accidentally leaking magic into the flame beneath his cauldron and overheating his brew. Tonight, though, he was careful, checking his thermometer between each step. He finished decanting the antidote into a clean vial just as the timer on Snape’s desk rang and Snape snapped his book shut.

Harry was particularly proud of the brew. It was a nice, light blue like his textbook said it should be, and it even had the shimmer described. It was a little thick, but all in all, he thought it was alright. With only a little trepidation, Harry set the vial on Snape’s desk.

Snape raised an eyebrow at him before reluctantly picking up the vial. Holding it up to the light, he tilted the vial. “The color is off,” he said first. “It should be a light cornflower blue, but this is a much brighter cerulean. Also, the consistency is wrong. The viscosity should be that of juice or a thick broth, but this is practically a syrup. The patient would be more likely to choke on it than be healed by it.”

Waiting in front of Snape’s desk, Harry’s shoulders slumped, and he glared down at his feet. This was why he didn’t put much effort into this class anymore. No matter how hard he had tried at the beginning, he had never been able to get his potions up to Snape’s standard, and eventually he had given up on excelling. Ron seemed completely uninterested in the subject, so the two of them happily slacked off together under Hermione’s critical gaze.

“Potter, you’re not actually an imbecile. Why is it that you so rarely hand in a well-done potion?”

Harry’s head snapped up to meet Snape’s gaze. “What?”

Snape’s upper lip curled, but only barely. “Your homework is well-written when you bother to put in the effort instead of copying and rewording Miss Granger’s tangent-filled ramblings.” He paused, opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out a scroll of parchment. When he unfurled it, Harry was shocked to see his own most recent essay, the one on the medicinal properties of elderberries. It was covered in red ink and comments, but there were fewer bleeding marks on it than usual, and right there at the top was a crisp EE. “There were parts you could have expanded on, and your handwriting and grammar are nearly as atrocious as they were three years ago, but you have all the necessary and relevant facts, and you even made some interesting insights. Nothing groundbreaking, of course, but still several steps ahead of most of your peers.

“I began to think that you had turned over a new leaf, but then you come into my classroom and present me with this.” He waggled the vial with its sticky, too-bright concoction. “And I find myself once more disappointed at your lackluster performance.”

Harry had to bite down the outraged words he wanted to spit at the professor. He had tried! He did his best! And Harry was sure his potion hadn’t turned out worse that everyone else’s had. At least a few other students had to have struggled.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he finally managed to mumble without too much anger in his voice. To keep himself from snarling at his professor, he was once more glaring at his own toes. “I’m not sure where it went wrong.”

“Well, that’s hardly a riddle is it? Your poor ingredient preparation is what caused this mess.”

Harry was at a loss for words. He just stared at the professor. Ingredient preparation? That had been the only part of potions making that he was confident in. He had been cooking for the Dursleys for as long as he could remember, and chopping ingredients in the kitchen was really no different from chopping them in the classroom.

Was it?

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir,” he said.

Snape rolled his eyes so hard his head actually moved. “Of course you don’t. Potter, potions require precision. If you refuse to prepare the ingredients as instructed, your potions will never turn out properly. Now, if that is everything, please clear your station and go—”

“But, sir,” Harry said, his frustration finally leaking into his words. “You never taught us most of the terms the textbook uses, and the book doesn’t explain them either. I’ve tried, but how am I supposed to get it right if you don’t help us?”

“Do I have to hold your hand while you brew now? Just because you didn’t do the reading—”

“You didn’t assign any on preparation techniques!”

“You will cease interrupting me, Mr. Potter! Those techniques were all discussed in detail in your supplementary texts, but of course you couldn’t be bothered to read what wasn’t assigned, and I won’t be held responsible for your laziness.”

Harry froze. He wanted to be angry at the dour man who had finally stood from his desk so he could yell at Harry. And he was angry that the man seemed to have forgotten that night from only a couple weeks ago, when he and Draco had treated him with something like compassion. But mostly, Harry was confused.

“What supplementary texts?”

Snape froze. “What do you mean, ‘what supplementary texts?’” he said. His voice was low and threatening.

“I mean that the only books I was told to get for this class were _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ and _Magical Drafts and Potions_.”

Snape lowered himself into his seat slowly. Then, with an alarmingly human groan of frustration, he leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and buried his face in his hands. He seemed to be breathing very carefully, as if it took all of his concentration.

Harry made himself wait a full minute before verbally nudging Snape. “Er, professor?”

Snape did not answer, merely pulling one hand from his face and holding up a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture.

As the silence stretched on, Harry shifted awkwardly. Eventually, too uncomfortable just standing there staring at the man, he moved to his workstation and began clearing everything away. He cleaned his potions knife and put in its case. Then he washed the class-issued cutting board and returned it to the cabinet where they were all stored, a teetering pile of different sized planks on a high shelf. It was only after he had washed his cauldron and stirring rod and was returning them to his assigned cubby space on the back wall that Professor Snape ended his statue impersonation.

“Mr. Potter. I’m going to list off some books, and I want to know which of them you’ve heard of.”

“Alright,” Harry agreed.

“ _An Introduction to Magic for Muggleborns and Their Parents_.”

“No.”

“ _A Muggleborn’s Guide to Household Spells_.”

“No.”

“ _Ministry, Customs, and Currency of Wizarding Britain: For the New Arrival_.”

“No.”

“ _Astrology to Zoology: A Study of the Diverse Branches of Magical Knowledge_.”

“No.”

“ _Everything You Need to Know About Potions Before You Touch a Cauldron_.”

“Er, no.”

Snape collapsed backwards into his seat. His slumped posture was quite strange to see on such a collected man. However, the way his fist trembled on the arm of his chair showed that he was anything but relaxed. “Sir?”

“I owe you an apology, Potter.”

* * *

Severus watched the boy who was openly gaping at him like a confused fish. Had the circumstanced been different, and if he were a different man, he might have laughed. As it was, only his tight hold on his emotions kept him from marching upstairs and berating the headmaster so loudly they heard it down in Hogsmeade.

“I’m sorry. I should have thought about this before when you mentioned that you were raised by your aunt,” he continued.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

Severus pursed his lips as he considered the right way to tell the child what he was only now realizing. Finally, he decided that the blunt truth might be best.

“Potter, Hogwarts is a respected institution on the global scale. That means that students are expected to have a certain amount of knowledge before they enter their classes. For those raised in the wizarding world, that means they have tutors or are homeschooled. For muggleborns and other students raised in the muggle world, like yourself, they are given supplementary texts and a school contact who can answer any question they might have. These resources are meant to put them on track with their peers, as much as possible. They should be prepared for their classes and able to navigate the world around them.”

“But I didn’t get any of those.” The boy was frowning but obviously hadn’t caught on to Severus’s point yet.

“No, you did not. The wizarding world has always been interested in you, as you no doubt saw when you arrived, but no one really knew where you were. Dumbledore assured everyone that you were being raised by relatives and that you were receiving the best education possible. In fact, he told me personally that you were being trained to be face the Dark Lord when he returned again.”

Potter began to look a little sick. “But I didn’t know anything about magic before Hagrid came to get me. I didn’t—they told me I was a freak!” The boy’s cheeks were painted with spots of red, and his fists were tight at his sides. “Why would the headmaster talk to everyone about me like that?”

He was getting closer.

“There are two options I can think of,” Severus said. “Either it was an innocent mistake on his part leaving those books off your list, and he truly thought you were being loved, cared for, and trained, or . . . .”

“. . . Or he knew what was happening, and he did it on purpose,” Potter whispered.

“Indeed.”

Potter slumped into a chair behind the desk he had been working at, unconsciously mirroring Severus’s own position. When Potter finally spoke, his voice was brittle. It was a tone Severus recognized well; the tone of someone realizing that they had been betrayed by someone they trusted. “I told him once, you know. About the Dursleys and how they hate magic and they hate me. He told me that going back was for my _protection_.” He spit the word out like it had burned his tongue. “He told me that they were my family, so they loved me and would miss me if I didn’t return.”

Severus fell into a coughing fit. He couldn’t imagine Petunia actually loving anyone, let alone a magical child.

“I didn’t believe him, of course, but I didn’t think I had a choice. Besides, when I ran away last year, the minister found me right away.”

“Well. That won’t be happening again. Petunia’s home is certainly no place for you. In the meantime, though, you need to be brought up to scratch. I’m assuming Albus purposely left the extra texts off your lists, I’ll order them myself and give them to you. They aren’t long or particularly difficult—they are geared to be understood by eleven-year-olds and muggles, after all—so I expect you to have them all read by the end of the winter holidays, understood?”

* * *

Harry nodded so quickly his neck hurt a little. In fact, he was actually looking forward to the readings. He had enjoyed reading when he was younger, if only because the library was a guaranteed Dursley-free zone, but this was more than a simple curiosity or form of escapism. Since he had come to Hogwarts, Harry had felt like he was a few steps behind everyone else. He had usually done well enough in his classes, but in the more complex classes like Transfiguration and Charms, it felt like he was trying to put together a puzzle he had no guide for, like he was missing the basic understanding everyone around him just intuitively carried with them.

He had initially put it down to being from the muggle world, but Hermione and the other muggleborns didn’t seem to have the same issue. In fact, it was often Hermione lecturing him about the goings on of the wizarding world. Harry had just assumed it was because she went above and beyond in her research habits. Now, though, he would finally be on the same page as everyone else.

There was just one thing still confusing him.

“Sir, why are you helping me? Is it because you knew my mother?”

Snape winced, just slightly. Harry had been wanting to ask Snape about her since that first night when Snape had waved him off, but he hadn’t known how to bring it up yet. Bluntly throwing it at the man probably wasn’t the best way to have said it, but no one every claimed Harry had much tact to begin with.

“Partly,” Snape allowed when he had composed himself, but he didn’t continue.

Harry waited, but when it became obvious that Snape wouldn’t go on, he had to press. “Can you tell me about her?”

To his surprise, Snape seemed to actually be considering it. “Fine, but not here. I will not have some bumbling student wander in.” He led Harry once again to his own quarters, through Raginald’s portrait, and to the comfortable little couch Harry had dozed on last time. “Sit,” he ordered.

Harry sat. He wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

After Snape had settled himself in the armchair, he finally looked Harry in the eye. “What would you like to know about her?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, let me know if there are any important tags you think are missing.


	8. Chapter 8

That evening, Snape had told Harry all about the Lily Evans he had known when he was a child, the one he had attended school with and been friends with. He mentioned that their friendship had come to an end due to a poor choice he had made while they were still at school, but he hadn’t gone further into detail on what that was, and Harry hadn’t pushed. He was happy enough with the information he had been given.

Lily’s favorite color was a sharp, lime green, “for some unfathomable reason,” according to Snape.

Lily hadn’t actually cared much for lilies, and she swore her favorite flowers were dandelions, even when her mother despaired over the seeds her daughter would blow all over their scraggly little lawn.

Lily had a horrid sweet tooth, and after Snape had introduced her to the things a year before they started Hogwarts, she could almost always be found with a couple sugar quills in her bag.

Lily loved poetry and had given Snape a book of silly poems for his thirteenth birthday because, according to Lily, he needed more laughter in his life.

Lily loved flying, high and fast, but she didn’t care for quidditch at all, so she refused to play, even when the quidditch captain spent weeks their third year begging her to try out for the seeker position.

Lily always had her fingernails painted in bright, absurd colors, and a particularly strict DADA professor had given her detention every time he saw her “unbecoming” nails for nearly an entire month before he gave up.

Lily had a terrible singing voice, but she always sang along with the radio, and she sang most loudly along with the Beatles and the Monkees.

On and on the stories and random facts had gone, and Harry reveled in them. Over the course of a couple hours, the flat image Harry had had in his head of Lily Potter nee Evans had fleshed out into an actual person.

Everyone was always happy to tell Harry about James, and Harry was happy to hear about him, but no one every really told him anything about Lily except that Harry had her eyes. His earliest memory was of her dying for him, but he hadn’t known anything real about her besides her dying words until this very evening.

Eventually, as curfew drew near, Snape waved Harry out of his quarters and sent him to bed with a stern “Goodnight, Harry.” The look he gave Harry told the boy that he knew Harry wasn’t returning to the Gryffindor dorms, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it yet.

In his room, Harry found an owl waiting for him with a letter from Sirius asking him to meet him in the Gryffindor common room on the 22nd. Harry wasn’t pleased that he would have to return to Gryffindor, but he would figure it out later. First, he had to figure out what to do about the first task.

* * *

According to Hermione, the first task was always different. The second task always involved having to solve a clue, and the third task was usually some sort of race, but the first task could be anything, including a duel between the champions.

“You’re sure they didn’t let any clues slip?” Hermione pressed, _again_ , while the were tucked at their usual table. Viktor occasionally joined them, but Hermione tended to get huffy when his contingent of fangirls showed up, so he couldn’t stay for long.

The Bulgarian seeker always looked reluctant to leave, and Harry had teased Hermione once that maybe Viktor liked her more than as just a study buddy. Hermione had rolled her eyes and argued back that maybe Viktor was actually looking at him as more than just a fellow competitor. Harry’s thoughts had stuttered to a halt at the idea. It certainly wasn’t unpleasant. He didn’t think Viktor was his type, but he also wasn’t sure what his type was. The burly quidditch player wasn’t exactly off-putting though, once you got past his gruff attitude. Hermione had smirked at him the whole day, and every time she caught his eye, he had flushed an unflattering red.

“No, as Viktor and I both told you, all we know is that they want to test our daring. If Cedric or Fleur have figured anything out, they haven’t told us.” He turned another page in the runes textbook in front of him.

Harry was quite hoping he could use runes in the first task. He was borrowing Hermione’s runes textbook from last year and was flying through the practices with an eager determination. It was only thanks to Hermione’s reminders that he was finishing his other homework on time. He had moved on from relying on premade strings to making his own basic strings. There was now one over the door and window in his little room that kept the room temperature controlled. He was considering adding some runes to the frames of his glasses so Hermione wouldn’t feel the need to fix them each year, but they were so battered at this point that he wasn’t sure it was worth making them unbreakable. He wondered if there was a magical optometrist that he could visit on the next Hogsmeade weekend so he could get a new pair.

Hermione practically growled. “How do they expect you to prepare if they don’t give you any information?”

“I expect that’s rather the point, Granger. As the champions should already know everything they need to pass, they shouldn’t really have to prepare, should they?”

Both Harry and Hermione jumped at the voice and swiveled to face Draco who was leisurely approaching their table. He still had his badge, though now it was pinned on his school bag rather than his chest, and he winked at Harry as he pressed it to proclaim _POTTER STINKS._ Harry childishly stuck his tongue out at his once-rival. The bubbles he had used the evening before were meant to smell of cucumber and aloe. Harry didn’t like it as much as some of the other scents he had tried, but he certainly didn’t stink.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Hermione asked. She had realized that the antagonism between him and Harry was gone now (though Harry hadn’t ever actually explained why), but she was still not fond of the blond boy.

“Nothing,” Draco said, with an absurd expression of innocence. “However, Professor Snape has asked me to fetch Potter.”

Hermione looked at Harry in confusion when he started packing up his things without argument. He waved off her concern without an explanation. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Several people stopped to stare at Harry and Draco walking amicably side by side on their way out of the library, and Madam Pince wore an uncomplimentary expression of relief to see them on their way. Harry hadn’t thought the two of them together were _that_ destructive.

Once they were out in the hallway and alone, Harry asked, “So, do you know why Snape wants to see me?”

“I really don’t. He wants to see both of us though. He sent me the note about it at breakfast.”

Harry frowned in confusion. “We’ve had two classes together today. Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could have actually prepared.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Draco gave Harry’s messy hair, year-old robes, and hanging muggle clothes a critical look. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think we’re in trouble, for once.”

“Oh.”

They walked in companionable silence for several minutes, the odd passing student hurrying out of their way as if the two of them might explode at any second. Only when they began to descend into the dungeons and Slytherin territory did Draco break the quiet.

“I heard a rumor,” he began. Harry thought the nonchalance on his face looked a little more strained than usual. “I heard that you aren’t staying in the Gryffindor dorms anymore.”

“Er, no. I’m not.”

Professor McGonagall had been giving him concerned looks about it all week, but Harry had outright refused to return to his dormitory or confess where he was currently living the second time she had brought it up. His refusal had been so vehement that she hadn’t approached him outside of class since.

“Well, where are you staying?”

“Why do you care, Draco? Are you worried for me?” he teased.

“I don’t care,” Draco sniffed. “I just want to know if it’s nicer than my dormitory.”

“Ha, I doubt it. I bet it’s warmer, though. It’s chilly under the lake, and your common room doesn’t have nearly enough fireplaces.”

Harry stumbled into Draco when the blond boy froze on the second to last stair. Slowly, Draco swiveled to stare at him, and Harry realized his mistake. “I mean—”

“How do you know what our common room looks like?”

“Well, you see . . . .”

* * *

Draco was fuming when he stormed into Severus’s office, Harry following behind the blond sheepishly.

“He has invaded the sanctity of the Slytherin common room!” Draco bellowed with an accusing finger aimed at Harry.

“I see,” Severus said, ignoring Harry’s mumblings about ‘Draco’ and ‘dramatics’. “Is that where you’ve been staying then instead of your school-assigned bed?”

“Er, no. This was a while ago.” Harry rubbed at the back of his neck, mussing his shaggy hair even more than it already was.

“He used Polyjuice!”

That was a far more dangerous accusation in light of the missing ingredients from Severus’s stores, and his eyes narrowed on the guilty-looking boy. “Is that so? Boomslang skin has recently gone missing from my stores as well as several other key ingredients for Polyjuice potion. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Genuine confusion twisted the boy’s features though. “What? No, this was years ago, like I said.”

“Tell me.”

Harry shifted uneasily. “Are you allowed to take points for something that happened in a different term? Or assign detentions?”

“That depends entirely on how bad your explanation is.”

By the time Harry had finished spilling his story, Severus rather wished he had taken the job offer in Iceland he gotten a few years back if only so he could have remained ignorant of this boy and his poorly thought-out plans. “So, after getting your friend turned into a hybrid cat, getting yourselves lost, and getting nearly caught multiple times, did you learn anything useful?”

“Only that literally everyone in this school has a really low opinion of Crabbe and Goyle’s level of intelligence and that Draco was as clueless as we were.”

“Hey!”

“You were!”

“Boys!”

Severus rubbed at his temples, and the boys mumbled their unfelt apologies.

“Didn’t you even think to do some reconnaissance before taking the potion?” he asked the boy. “Even something as simple as finding out where the Slytherin common room is or the regular habits and pets of the people you were impersonating?”

“We were more focused on keeping the potion from being found in the girls’ toilet, honestly.”

Dear god, this boy would never pass as any sort of a spy. Severus wasn’t sure if that was worrying or a comfort.

“We’re tabling this discussion for now, but rest assured that we will be returning to it in the future.” Severus said. _Someday when I have fortified myself with stronger occlumency shields and some hard liquor._ “Now, moving on. Harry, these came for you this morning.” He pushed a pile of thin informational books forward on his desk. He had included all the books he had told Harry about several evenings before as well as a few others he usually recommended to new students when he was sent to contact muggleborns. He would be eternally grateful if Harry would pay special attention to the guide on quill care and penmanship. Harry’s handwriting wasn’t the worst in the school, but it was a near thing, and he had more than once gotten a headache trying to trudge through the chicken scratch.

“Wicked!” Harry grinned, pulling the books toward him and sorting through them immediately. “Thanks! How much do I owe you?”

Severus felt his eyebrow twitch without his permission. “Don’t worry about reimbursing me. This was an error on the school’s part, not yours. Therefore the school shall foot the bill.”

Harry stopped his perusal of the books to look Severus. His expression was pinched. “Are you sure? I have money.”

“Quite sure. I’ve included the catalogues for Flourish and Blotts as well as a few other less well-known bookshops in case you are interested in ordering any other books.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, as for why I’ve called you _both_ down. Harry, I know your knowledge of the workings of magical Britain is somewhat lacking,” an understatement of epic proportions, “but are you aware that you stand to inherit a seat in the Wizengamot?”

Harry stared at him blankly. “The Wizengamot is like Parliament, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes. The Potter family has had a seat for the last century and a half, and when you turn seventeen, you will legally be able to claim that seat. If it is left unclaimed for more than a year, your family will lose it.”

“But then, shouldn’t we have lost it already?” Harry asked. “It’s been thirteen years since there was a Potter old enough to claim it.”

“No, it’s been held in reserve. Your grandfather died of dragonpox only seven months before your parents were killed. I would guess that your father was hoping that the war would end before his time to claim the seat ran out. If it didn’t, he likely would have come out of hiding to claim it even if he went back into hiding again later.”

“Okay. But what does this have to do with me now? Can I use it to get out of the tournament? And why does Draco need to be here for this?”

“No, I doubt it could be used to get you exempted from the tournament.” Severus would have to look into idea, though, because he was following any and all possible leads to keep Harry safe from the machinations of whatever scheme was currently in motion. “Most of those with seats in the Wizengamot are trained for it from a very young age. The Malfoys also have a seat, and Draco has been learning law, politics, and proper etiquette since he was eight years old. You are behind.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a book in one of these catalogs that can teach me everything, is there.”

“Certainly not,” Severus chuckled. “You will need many, many books to learn what all you will need to know. However, certain kinds of knowledge can’t be taught solely from books.”

“Don’t tell Hermione that.”

Severus ignored him. “That is why I propose that you allow Draco to teach you what he has learned so far to help prepare you.” The two teens had been surprisingly nonconfrontational since Halloween. Severus quite liked the peace it afforded him. On top of that, though, it seemed they could actually be good friends if they had the chance. Spending more time working together would only encourage that, and he wanted only the best for both of them, though he would never admit it to either of them.

Besides Harry really did need to learn all of this. Once Draco had taught Harry all he could, Severus would have to find Harry another tutor. Perhaps Lucius, if the man was amenable, but Severus wasn’t sure he trusted the man with Harry just yet.

“That’s a lot that he’s going to need to learn, and I haven’t learned everything yet,” Draco said. His voice shook a little. “Maybe someone older would be a better teacher.” A lack of self-confidence was not usually one of Draco’s weaknesses, but he looked actually daunted at that moment.

“Nonsense.” Severus wouldn’t let his godson’s nervousness to hinder any of them. “You’ve learned as much as any of your older peers, and there are no adults in the castle with the training and knowledge necessary. Unless you would recommend the headmaster for the task?”

Draco grimaced. His family’s dislike of Albus was not a secret, and Severus knew Draco wouldn’t entrust his new friend to the headmaster for all his gold.

“Fine,” Draco conceded. “But if you’re going to be taking over as an official head of the family, you’re going to need to know a lot more than just politics. You need to understand finances too, as well as basic conversation and etiquette.”

“Er . . . .”

“Thank you for proving my point.”

“Shut up! I mean—ugh. I don’t know if I even want to be a politician my whole life.”

“It’s not meant to be a full-time job,” Draco said. “For a lot of members, the ones belonging to wealthy families that have had seats forever, it is their only job, but the Wizengamot only meets twice a month. Of course, you have to do some work outside of those meetings, especially if you’re planning to propose a new law, and there are occasional criminal trials that the Wizengamot oversees, but you can have another job too, if you want one.

“Besides, with the standing and public presence you’ll have as head of the Potter family and the standing you have as the Boy-Who-Lived, basic manners are a necessity.” Severus had to cover a smirk at the acidic look Harry sent Draco at the boy’s assessment, but Draco seemed hardly affected by it at all. “You know I’m right.”

Harry looked away and grumbled something so quietly that neither Severus nor Draco could make it out. “What was that?” Severus asked.

Harry huffed, and Severus wasn’t sure the boy was going to repeat himself. But after another moment of shuffling and sighing, he said, only slightly louder than before, “Does it count as being the head of the family if there’s no one else left?”

It was a melancholy question, and Severus didn’t have an answer for it. Technically, he was a Prince, but because he had never known the family or received the proper training, their Wizengamot seat had been absorbed and redistributed. He was pretty sure it had gone to the ministry for a mid-level department head. However, he was still technically the head of the Prince family. He had several crumbling houses he had no idea what to do with and the severely depleted Prince bank account at Gringotts. He hardly ever touched it, but it still contained more galleons than he made in five years with his teaching and freelance potion sales combined. Despite the galleons, the houses, and the occasional extremely distant cousin offering unsolicited advice, Severus didn’t feel like his position as head of the Prince family had any real meaning.

Luckily, Severus didn’t have the chance the answer because Draco beat him to it. “Of course it does! In fact, it’s more important now than ever. You plan to get married and have kids, right?”

A bizarre expression crossed Harry’s face. Surely marriage wasn’t a foreign concept to the boy.

“I’ve always wanted a big family,” he admitted softly. “So, yeah, I guess.”

“Well, the choices you make will affect all your descendants too. Because you’re the only Potter, for now, you get to choose the direction you take your family. There’s no one to argue against you or to try to take control. You great-grandchildren will look back to you and ask themselves what you would do and what you would want them to do. They’ll carry your values on shape the future of wizarding Britain.” He paused as if he was only just realizing how glorifying Harry’s freedom sounded when Harry had no family to rely on at all. His pale cheeks pinked slightly, but he pushed on. “It’s not ideal, of course. It’s not a burden a teenager should have to carry. But it makes you so powerful. A force for change, if you want it. A force of good.”

Harry’s breath was shuddery, and he crossed his thin arms tight over his stomach. He seemed to be holding himself for comfort, and Severus hoped the boy didn’t start crying. Severus never knew what to do with crying people. Even when Draco had been an infant with fairly simple needs and emotions, tears sent Severus practically running out of the room.

Draco didn’t seem to be any surer of what to do for Harry. One pale hand was slightly raised as if to offer physical comfort, but he wasn’t touching Harry, and he looked hesitant to actually initiate contact.

Thankfully, for all their sakes, Harry pulled himself together. “Okay, fine,” he said, shaking himself. “I’ll learn . . . all that stuff. I’m not committing to taking the Potter seat in a few years, but I want to learn everything I might need to know, just in case.”

Severus wasn’t sure why he breathed a sigh of relief, and he hoped the boys didn’t notice the gust.

“Good. We’ll start with finances,” Draco said decisively. “It’s a vital part of every governmental decision, and you can practice on your own finances to start with.”

“Er, okay. Whatever you say, Professor Malfoy.”

“I suppose I will be arranging an outing to Gringotts for the three of us, shall I?” Severus asked dryly. It wasn’t like he hadn’t expected his godson to take charge once he accepted the assignment, but he would like it if Draco remembered that he really was only a fourteen-year-old boy who did not actually have the power to order anyone about.

“Yes, please, Severus,” Draco said. “And if we’re training Harry to be presentable at the ministry, we should probably make a whole day of it. Harry is in dire need of a new wardrobe.”

All three of them looked down at Harry’s drab, baggy clothes. His t-shirt threatened to fall off his left shoulder, and his trousers would have slid straight off were it not for the leather belt cinched tight at his waist. The ever-present cracked, muggle sneakers were on his feet, and Severus could see Harry’s socked toe peeking out through one of the many holes. Harry’s cheeks were red, but he looked nearly as disgusted by his clothes as Draco was.

“I’ll get clearance for this weekend,” Severus assured them both.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry and Draco were both told to meet Snape in his quarters that Saturday at eight o’clock sharp. In order to get a Gringotts appointment at such short notice, the appointment had to be first thing in the morning. While it was a Hogsmeade weekend, the three of them would be leaving the castle while the rest of the school was still at breakfast or, in the case of several students, still in bed. “I apologize for the inconvenience,” Snape said when the two still-sleepy boys shuffled into his quarters, though he didn’t sound particularly regretful. “I do hope neither of you had any pressing plans.”

Harry didn’t mention the meeting he had with Sirius late that evening, so he merely shook his head. He doubted Snape would want to hear about his school rival, and it wasn’t like the two meetings would conflict.

Draco, though, had no issue with a little complaining. He was, apparently, not a morning person, though he looked sort of adorable wrapped up snuggly in his thick cloak. “I’m missing breakfast for this Severus!” he whined pitifully. Harry doubted the other boy had ever missed a meal in his life.

“You will hardly expire because you missed your morning tea, Draco. However, we will stop for a late breakfast after collecting Harry’s records at the bank. I assume that correcting his wardrobe will be a lengthy endeavor that we will all need sustenance for.”

Harry flushed and looked away without responding. It wasn’t his fault the Dursleys never gave him anything more that the worst of Dudley’s old clothes or that Dudley wasn’t exactly kind to his clothes in the first place.

“Harry,” Snape called his name to bring his attention back to the two of them waiting patiently by the door. Harry had noticed that Snape had been using his first name since the night they spoke about Lily, and he wondered if he should be calling Snape by his first name like Draco did. However, the idea of doing so without explicit permission was too intimidating.

“Yes, sir?”

“If you’re ready, we will be going now.” Snape led the two of them through the halls at a quick clip. With almost everyone at breakfast, and Snape taking the more unknown passages, there was no one to notice their exit from the castle. None of them spoke again until they were out on the grounds and walking down the path to the front gate.

“Have you read any of the books I brought you yet, Harry?” Snape asked.

Harry was quick to nod. “Yes, sir! I’ve finished _An Introduction to Magic for Muggleborns and Their Parents_ , and I’ve started both _Ministry, Customs, and Currency_ and the potions book.” He was thrilled to finally have an answer to so many of the basic questions he had felt were too stupid to ask earlier.

For example, he had wondered for years why Charms and Transfiguration weren’t lumped together when quite often they seemed to intersect. Now, though, he knew that transfiguration magic changed an object, person, or animal on a molecular level. Harry hadn’t even known wizards knew about molecules. So when McGonagall had changed her desk into a pig that first day, it wasn’t a desk that looked like a pig, it was a pig that just happened to have once been a desk. If someone had slaughtered it, cooked it, and served it to them, it would have been the same as eating any other piece of pork or bacon, if less nutritionally rich considering that the pig had never eaten anything. Meanwhile charms simply altered aspects of the object or person. Sometimes, charms didn’t even change the object itself but the environment around it or even simply everyone’s perception of the object.

He had also skimmed through the other books, but he hadn’t had time to do much more than take stock of their tables of contents in the few days since Snape had delivered the books to him. He was kind of frustrated that he hadn’t had access to _Astrology to Zoology: A study of the Diverse Branches of Magical Knowledge_ his second year. It would have made choosing his electives much easier and more productive had he actually had an idea of what he was getting into. While he was happy with his choice to take Care of Magical Creatures—blast-ended skrewts notwithstanding—divination had little application outside of school unless you really had a gift as a seer.

He would have made more progress in the books—avoiding the common room allowed a surprisingly significant portion of time to be left for studying—had it not been for the upcoming task. It was set for the 24th, which was only three days away, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t starting to panic. He still had no idea what the task would be and, as far as he knew, none of the others did either. Viktor hypothesized that either they would be attacked or they would have to attack someone or something else, so the two of them had gotten permission to borrow the Charms classroom in the evenings and practice both offensive and defensive magic.

Their practices proved to Harry just how far behind the others—or Viktor, at least—he was in terms of skill and knowledge. When they were practicing against each other, Viktor gave him a chance. He would slow down his movements and occasionally pause to show Harry some spell or another. However, when they practiced against the dummies Flitwick kept for dueling practices, Viktor held nothing back. A simple flick of his wrist, he beheaded two dummies at once. A sickly yellow spell sent stuffing spewing from the dummies’ torsos. Wide slashes from Viktor’s wand left the dummies in scraps across the floor.

Flitwick was surprisingly cheerful about the destruction and would sometimes pop in on their sessions to give tips and general advice before waving his wand at the defeated dummies and putting them back together again. They looked only a little worse for wear.

Harry was happiest to have learned the shield spell from their sessions. It was the only thing Viktor had forced him to practice over and over again until he got it right. If nothing else, Harry figured he could cast a good _protego_ around himself during the task and wait it out.

Despite the fact that Harry hadn’t been able to get through all of the books yet, Snape seemed pleased with his progress, even if his only acknowledgement of it was a nod. “I recommend you also prioritize _Perfect Penmanship and Quick Quill Care_. While not a required text for muggleborns, it is one I always recommend, and your penmanship in particular could use some work.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry ducked, chastised.

“There is no need to look so put out, Harry. It is not your fault no one ever corrected you before now.”

“I feel like I should have realized what I was missing before now,” Harry said. “I’ve had four years to learn more about the wizarding world, and everyone expects me to know as much as they do, but I didn’t even think about doing the research. I mean, Hermione was always reading something, and she knew so much. Whatever I didn’t know, I figured she or Ron would fill in the gaps.” However, both his friends seemed to expect everyone around them to know as much as they did, so they usually didn’t realize just how many gaps Harry needed filled. Plus, he was realizing more and more how unfair it was to put that expectation on them. He still wasn’t talking to Ron, but he had apologized to Hermione about it. She had just waved him off.

“To be fair,” Draco butted into Harry’s self-recrimination, “you do seem to have been fairly busy trying not to die.”

“Which is not something a student should have to struggle with while at school,” Snape agreed. “You have spent much of your time at school focusing on learning what would save your life. While unfortunate, it is quite understandable that some topics would therefore fall by the wayside.”

Harry smiled at them both gratefully. He never would have expected Snape and Draco, previously his two most hated school antagonists, to defend and comfort him all at once.

“Now,” Snape continued as they stepped past the front gate. “We will be apparating to Diagon Alley. Harry, I’m assuming that you’ve never apparated before.”

“No, sir.”

“Then it’s probably for the best that you missed breakfast. You’ll want to hold my arm tightly.” Harry took the proffered arm as Draco did the same with Snape’s other arm. “And take a deep breath.”

Harry gulped in some air obediently, and as soon as his lips were closed, Snape twisted on the spot. The whole world went oppressively black, and Harry squeezed his eyes closed to block it out as he was dragged through what felt like a very thin, very twisty straw. Before he could find his balance in the strange not-world, he felt the ground slam into his feet and the space around him expand back to normal levels. With his eyes open, he found himself in an out-of-the-way corner of Diagon Alley and more than a little queasy. Snape and Draco were polite enough not to mention how Harry clutched at his stomach.

It was still early enough in the morning that not many shops were open, though it seemed like traffic was starting to pick up as people hurried to work. Here and there, dark shop windows were suddenly flooded with light and window displays jumped to life, ready to show off their owners’ wares. Snape gave Harry no time to gawk, though, and was already hurrying up the alley toward the imposing marble bank.

“Come on, Harry,” Draco said. He took Harry’s wrist with his own soft and pale hand to drag him along, and Harry was glad Draco wasn’t looking back so he wouldn’t see Harry’s blush. It was getting to be concerning and a little annoying how often he blushed around the blond.

Once inside the bank, Snape spoke softly with a goblin at the front desk, and with a snap of the goblin’s fingers, a younger looking goblin hustled the three of them into an office where a waiting goblin waved them into seats on the other side of his desk. Harry obediently took the middle seat Draco nudged him toward feeling distinctly out of his element.

“Heir Potter,” the goblin across from him said in the low, gravelly voice all goblins seemed to have. “I am Blednag. I understand this meeting was set up by your professor so that you could obtain copies of your account records.”

“Er, yes please, Master Blednag.”

“I see. And why have you not done this before? As the sole Potter heir, it is your responsibility to understand your accounts, even if you are currently too young to have full control over them.”

“Yes, sir, that’s why we’re doing it now. I didn’t know I had more than the one vault my parents left me, so I wasn’t aware I had anything else to take responsibility of.”

The goblin’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and his mouth curled into a sharp-toothed, Snape-worthy sneer. “Indeed? We were informed that you were being trained in your responsibilities from a young age.”

“There seems to be a lot of that sort of misinformation going around about Heir Potter,” Snape said. “And I presume that it was Mr. Dumbledore that informed you of such.”

Blednag nodded. “You may presume that, yes.”

“He has done similarly on other topics. That is why Heir Malfoy and I are attempting to teach Heir Potter of his rights and responsibilities now, discretely of course. Your assistance would be most appreciated.”

“Gringotts of course will offer our support, Master Prince.”

Harry did a double take at the name and watched as Snape grimaced only a little, one hand clenching. However, he did not dispute the name. A glance at Draco told him not to ask about it just then.

“Heir Potter,” Blednag said. “If I could see your key as identification?”

“Er, I don’t have it. I was never allowed to keep it.”

“Who does have possession of your key?” Blednag demanded, and if Harry hadn’t faced trolls and basilisks and his uncle and other terrors, he would have flinched from the anger in the scowling goblin’s voice.

“I’m sorry, Master Blednag, I don’t know,” Harry said. He resolutely kept his voice firm and his back straight. Draco had told him that was important if he wanted the respect of the goblins. They were, after all, a warrior race, and bravery was valued, even if gold usually ranked higher in their list of priorities. “Hagrid had it the summer before my first year, and Mrs. Weasley had it the summer before my second year and this year as well. I didn’t withdraw any money my for third year, I just used what I had left over from the year before. I think Dumbledore has my key, but I don’t have any proof.”

Blednag growled low in his throat, and goosebumps sprang up on Harry’s arms. He was thankful when Blednag didn’t say anything else. Instead, the goblin went rooting around in his desk before he dug out a pristine sheet of heavy parchment and a penknife. He pushed both across the desk to Harry. “In that case, you will have to prove your identity before we can proceed with any further discussion of your account. Prick your finger and place three drops along the upper edge of the upper edge of the parchment.”

“Three drops for the Triple Goddess?” Harry asked. The Triple Goddess and the associated inherent magical power of the number three had been mentioned in _An Introduction to Magic for Muggleborns and Their Parents_. The book had only mentioned it in passing, but the runes textbook he was working through went more in depth on the subject.

He didn’t flinch as he pricked his finger with the very well sharpened blade and dripped his blood across the page. With a flick of his wand, Snape healed the tiny cut once the required blood was shed.

“Indeed, Heir Potter. Many do not think much of the connection to blood, but we know better. Now, if you will.” He gestured for Harry to return the parchment and knife to him. With a thin calligraphy brush, he connected the three dots of blood into a complicated, twisting rune or symbol Harry didn’t recognize. When the shape was closed, the blood sank into the parchment, reminding Harry uncomfortably of the diary from his second year. Before he could raise his concerns, though, words the same deep red as his blood began to appear, and his eyes froze on the first line.

_Harrison James Potter_

His couldn’t pull his gaze past that first word, even though nearly the whole page was filled with red writing now—far more than the blood he had given should have been able to write. He could feel the others in the room watching him with concern, but still, he stared at the word.

“Harrison?” he finally croaked.

“Names have power, so magic recognizes your full given name, not the one you go by,” Snape explained. “You can continue to go by your preferred diminutive outside of official documents.”

“I didn’t know ‘Harry’ wasn’t my full name.”

Both Snape and Draco were unnaturally still. It was Draco who finally asked, “You didn’t know your _name_?”

Silently, Harry—or Harrison?—shook his head. “I was just happy to have one. And it’s not like Harry is so uncommon as a full name now. There was an American president whose name was Harry.”

Snape and Draco sneered almost in unison. “Americans.”

“That is not a proper name,” Draco continued. “At least, not here in the wizarding world. I didn’t even think you might not know it.”

“I don’t—I don’t know how I feel about this.” Harry’s words were stilted and halting, and he finally forced himself to stop staring at the word. He looked at the rest of the page without seeing it.

“We will discuss that later then.” Snape’s tone brooked no argument.

“As you will,” Blednag said. He didn’t seem particularly concerned about Harry’s name. “However, for now, we at least can be assured that you are the owner of the account you’ve come to discuss. I have the requested transaction records and account statements here.” He waved his hand, and an inch-thick folder came into being, dropping heavily on the desk. “Review this and write if there are any changes you wish to make. If you have any concerns, set up an appointment with me so that we can fix them.” The edge in his voice promised that they would find concerns. Harry looked with some trepidation at the folder.

“Thank you for your time, Master Blednag,” Draco said. He slipped the parchment with Harry’s proof of identity into the folder and passed the whole thing to Harry.

“Yes, Master Blednag, thank you very much.” Harry agreed hastily.

“Until next time, Heir Potter.”

They were escorted back to the lobby in short order. There, they stopped to withdraw some galleons from each of their accounts in anticipation of their shopping. Harry looked at Snape in askance. He expected Draco to take advantage of the shopping trip, but surely Snape didn’t need any more sets of intimidating, black robes. Snape ignored his look.

After a short breakfast, Harry expected them to go to Madam Malkin’s, but Draco hurried him straight past the seamstress’s neat little shop. “Her work is fine for school robes and such, but you need clothing that is presentable for public and that will gain you some respect. Plus, you need a whole wardrobe, and such a large order on short notice would likely be outside of Madam Malkin’s capabilities. No, for what you need, we’re going to have to go somewhere higher-end,” Draco said.

Harry tried to silently plead with Snape, but the man only shook his head in amusement at his wide eyes. “I’m afraid I must defer to Draco’s expertise in this instance.”

Draco stopped them in front of _Rhiannon’s Regalia_ before practically shoving Harry through the door. A bell tinkled cheerfully over their heads as Harry looked around the surprisingly modern shop. It looked practically muggle. Unlike most wizarding shops he had been in, the place was wide open and airy. The shop was decorated almost entirely in light cream colors from the soft carpet under his feet to the shelves up near the ceiling. If it weren’t for the elegant cloaks and robes hung on the mannequin’s lining the walls, Harry might have suspected they had left Diagon Alley for Oxford Street.

“Hello?” a voice called from the back, and a tall, red-haired witched stepped in from a back room. She was thin, but not in a way that made her look wispy and fragile. Instead, she looked like she was ready to command an army. Her hair was pinned up in a tight but flattering bun, and the rich material of her robes looked heavy without being gaudy. Her stern expression warmed slightly when she caught sight of Draco. “Ah, if it isn’t my favorite, most demanding customer,” she crooned. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“That would be why I’m accompanying them, I afraid.”

“Ah! Professor Snape. It’s been a while.” If Harry didn’t know better, he would have said that the almost blank faced witch was teasing the dour man.

“Rhiannon, it’s an emergency!” Draco interrupted the exchange before it could get weirder. “Harry needs an entire wardrobe, as soon as possible.”

Finally, the witch turned her attention to Harry. Her gaze was sharp and assessing, and Harry squirmed a little under it. She took in his baggy muggle clothes and shaggy hair while exuding a sense of stern disappointment, not unlike McGonagall. “Harry Potter?” Her gaze flicked to his forehead, affirming her assumption before he could. “My, what interesting company you two keep these days. Very well! Mr. Potter, up on the dais, if you would.”

In short order, Harry found himself standing on a glossy white platform in from of three-fold mirror while a tape measurer snaked its way around him measuring different parts of his body. Off to the side, Draco had given Rhiannon his full attention and was rattling off a list of orders and recommendations Harry suspected he must have been collecting these plans for him for years just based off the shear volume of them. Snape had seated himself comfortably off to the side and out of the way of his godson’s dramatics. A tea service had set itself up at the table to his left and he was enjoying a cup along with a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ that had been offered.

Harry wasn’t following Draco and Rhiannon’s conversation, pondering over what he had learned at the bank instead, so he was startled to have Draco suddenly demand his attention. “What are you wearing to the ball, Harry?”

“What ball?”

Draco’s pale face leached of color and even Rhiannon’s expression gave way to vague concern. “’What ball?’ The Yule Ball, Harry, the one that is just a month away! You need dress robes!”

“Oh, I have some,” Harry said, relieved to have an answer. “When did they announce a ball? Do I have to go, do you think?”

Draco screamed behind clenched teeth and stomped over to Severus who had looked up at the ruckus. “You explain it to him,” Draco commanded his godfather.

Snape gave his godson a condescending look but turned to Harry anyways. “The Yule Ball is a Triwizard Tournament tradition. It is held on Christmas. As a Triwizard Champion, you are not only expected to attend, you are required to do so. You will also be required to open the dancing portion of the evening by leading your partner in a dance.”

Harry blanched.

“I don’t know how to dance!”

“Thank Merlin we’re figuring this out now. Dancing is a basic social necessity, and you don’t want to make a fool of yourself in front of the whole school! I’ll add it to the etiquette lessons, which we’ll start after the first task. You’ll be a brilliant dancer by Christmas. Now, robes?”

“Er, they’re green?” Harry hadn’t bothered to think about the robes since he packed them for Hogwarts.

“It’s like you’re purposely trying to drive me mad! What kind of green? What kind of cut?”

“A dark green, and I don’t know! Mrs. Weasley chose them. She said they matched my eyes.”

The sour lemon expression on Draco’s face told Harry that the other boy was politely not making any snide comments about the fashion sense of the Weasley matron but that it was a herculean effort for him.

Rhiannon spoke before any regretful words could be spoken. “I’ll need to see you once more in about two weeks, Mr. Potter, to fit some of the more formal robes for you. Why don’t you bring your dress robes with you then, and we can assess if they are appropriate for the event. Remember to ask your date what they plan to wear if you want to coordinate.”

“Er, alright,” Harry agreed. That put rather a tight deadline on finding a date, especially when five minutes ago, he hadn’t even known there was a ball he needed a date for.

“Excellent. You’re fine to step down. Give me two hours to have all of your regular wardrobe ready to go.”

They all thanked her and wandered back out into the alley. Draco immediately dragged them to the cobbler next door and put in an order for several new pairs of shoes for Harry. Harry was quite curious about how much he would be spending that day and on what. He hadn’t made a single choice about his own wardrobe all day. Snape must have caught his expression, because while Draco wandered off towards a shop with some excessively fancy quills displayed in the window, Snape leaned down to whisper into Harry’s ear.

“I know he’s a lot at times, but out of the three of us, he is likely the one best equipped to get you exactly what you need to be taken seriously by the wizarding world at large and get it as quickly as possible. He’s a demanding brat, but he’s effective. Honestly, I should have expected him this fashion obsession of his, but somehow, I didn’t. He gets it from both parents and already had very solid opinions on fabric patterns when he was a toddler. God forbid anything enter his nursey that clashed with the overall color scheme.”

Harry snorted easily, appreciating Snape’s attempt to cheer him up. “Let me guess; the teddy bear you brought him for Christmas was the wrong color?”

“Of course not. I brought him a perfectly coordinated silver stuffed dragon that he adored. However, the Dowager Lady Parkinson thought that the yellow toy niffler she gifted him was precious and was quite offended that a two-year-old Draco did not agree.”

A grin stretched across Harry’s face for the first time since they had entered the bank that morning, and he chuckled and the idea of the imperious toddler Draco no doubt had been.

“Now,” Snape said. “I think Draco has dictated our destinations enough today. Is there any shop you would like to visit while we wait for your new wardrobe to be ready?”

Snape and Draco let Harry drag them to Eeylops Owl Emporium so Harry could get some new treats for Hedwig. Hopefully, he could bribe her into liking him again. Then they visited a bookshop Harry had never had a chance to visit before. It was smaller than Flourish and Blotts and had a narrower selection, but it had a very thorough section on runes that Harry enjoyed browsing. “Any recommendations?” he asked Snape when the professor wandered closer to see what had interested him.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about the subject—I took Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures for my electives. However, Draco might have some ideas.”

When Draco found out Harry was interested in runes and was considering applying to be in the class, he had plenty of recommendations. The stack he provided Harry was too much to justify buying all at once, especially when he was only beginning the subject and was having to teach it to himself while also catching up on everything that he had missed first year and preparing for a tournament designed to potentially kill him. However, he copied down all the titles so that he could come back and get them when he had the opportunity. Draco was mollified by Harry selecting three of the more novice books to purchase. Apparently, Draco was taking Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy, the swot. Snape nodded approvingly at his choices and carried his own large stack of tomes to the counter. Apparently, that’s what he had needed to withdraw galleons for.

After a quick lunch, they made their way back to Rhiannon’s, and the woman had a small mountain of brown paper wrapped parcels waiting for him. “I’ll shrink them down so they’ll fit in your pocket,” she assured him when his eyes bulged out at the stack. “But first, go change. I’ll not see you in those muggle rags a second longer when you now have perfectly good robes.” She presented him with a neatly folded set of clothes.

Harry did as he was bid and was proud to find that when he looked in the mirror in the changing room, he actually looked like a proper wizard for the first time that he could remember. His school uniform just didn’t exude the same sense of other that these clothes did. Petunia might spontaneously combust if she saw him dressed like this. He loved it.

Rhiannon nodded her approval when he exited the changing room. “Excellent. I knew it would be a perfect fit, of course, but it’s always good to check. Do write of course if any of the other robes don’t fit right, and we’ll correct them on your next visit.” She had him sign a receipt so that the galleons could be taken directly from his vault, and he tried not to wince when he saw just how much she would be taking.

It was late afternoon by the time they made their way back up into the castle, splitting up in the entrance hall. Harry returned to his room to put away his new clothes and the file from Blednag. Draco had informed him that their lessons would start on Wednesday “barring any fatal injury you manage to obtain in the first task,” so he didn’t have to worry about working through the financial records yet.

He wandered downstairs again as most of the school was returning from Hogsmeade. “Harry!” Hermione cried when he found her. “Where’ve you been all day? I was worried.”

“Sorry, Hermione. I was taking care of some things.”

Hermione’s expression pinched, and she eyed his new clothes up and down. He expected that he would be interrogated more on the topic later, when peeved students weren’t listening in, but for now, she let the subject go. She leaned in close to him and whispered, “Hagrid found me in Hogsmeade. He told me to tell you to meet him at his hut and eleven-thirty and to bring your invisibility cloak.”

“Why? I’m meeting with Sirius at midnight, and that will be cutting it close.”

“I don’t know, but he said it was important. I’ll keep an eye out in the common room for Sirius in case his message gets there before you do.”

“Alright,” he agreed. He could tell it was going to be a very, very long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm...who is Harry going to take as his date to the Yule Ball? (For real, I have no idea. Give me ideas and a good argument, and that will probably be what I go with.)


	10. Chapter 10

After a night of seeing dragons, watching Hagrid try to flirt, meeting up with Sirius’s head in the Gryffindor fireplace, discussing Death Eaters, not quite hearing how he could get past the dragons, and getting into another row with Ron, Harry thought he deserved to sleep in on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was not to be. He woke with a crash and something sharp poking into his back. Cursing blurrily, he found himself tangled in several of Dudley’s old sweatshirts and the legs of the old wooden chair. One of the legs had given out and snapped, scratching painfully along his ribs, and he groaned.

This wasn’t the first time that his transfiguration work had fallen away in the few weeks since he had taken up residence in his little room. In fact, it happened at least twice a week. However, this was the first time it had happened while he was in the bed. Usually, he just came back in the evening to find laundry littered around the lone chair. Slowly rolling to the side, he extracted himself from the mess.

Once he had found his glasses and his wand, he re-transfigured the bed. It wasn’t his best work and would likely only last a day or two, but it was good enough for now he figured. Lifting his shirt and craning around, he could only just barely see the tip of the scratch that wrapped around his ribs. Luckily, as far as he could tell, it wasn’t bleeding, but he was sure he would have an impressive bruise around the spot in a few hours.

Dawn was just stretching over the horizon. It was too early to go bother Snape about what he had discovered last night—maybe Snape would know the spell Sirius had been trying to tell him?—but he couldn’t stay in the room. November’s oppressive chill had long ago creeped into the castle, and the stone floors felt like ice on his bare feet even with his temperature control runes. He dressed hurriedly and bundled his invisibility cloak around him before he left.

It was too early for many people to be up, but the library was open even if Madam Pince didn’t look particularly pleased to have students encroaching on her territory so early in the morning. She was familiar enough with Harry’s presence now though that she nodded a good morning at him.

Viktor found him at their usual table an hour and a half later. Harry had several books on dragons spread out around him and was practicing drawing the fire-repelling rune string on a spare piece of parchment. He probably looked a little crazed just then with his hair still mussed and several scorched pages littered around him. He kept messing up the angles between _algiz_ and _sowilo_ , protection and health. _Kannez_ , torch, was easy because the other two fell beneath it in the hierarchy. _Kennez_ was the focus of the grouping, but _algiz_ and _sowilo_ had to work together to hold the fire back. He only got it right about half the time, and he was pretty sure the only reason Madam Pince hadn’t violently thrown him out of the library was because she had personally drawn a ward around him to keep her books safe when he asked her to. He thought she might be developing a soft spot for him.

Viktor’s eyes twitched between the dragon encyclopedias, an out-of-date census of sorts for the Romanian dragon preserve, and the scorch marked parchment, and he nodded somberly. “You haff learned of the task faster than I expected. Well done.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, though he hadn’t done much. “I’m guessing Karkaroff told you?”

“Da. He voke me up this morning early and told me everything. He said he could not give me any more clues, but he also told me to ask him if I haff any questions.” Viktor rolled his eyes. Not even Karkaroff’s own students liked him. Whether they agreed with the once death eater’s politics or not, the majority of the students thought him a weak and cowardly traitor for running off on his compatriots and ratting them out to the British authorities. Most of the students simply avoided the man as much as possible. Unfortunately, as Karkaroff’s favorite, Viktor could never escape the man for long.

“I’m pretty sure Fleur will know soon too, if she doesn’t already. Madam Maxime knows about the dragons.”

“That only leaves Cedric. Vhat vill you do?”

Viktor’s question wasn’t judgmental, but he also made it clear that the decision was up to Harry. He would not give his opponent an advantage, but he would not stop Harry from helping his schoolmate.

“I’m going to tell him,” Harry said. “He shouldn’t be the only one who doesn’t know.”

Viktor nodded gravely. “Very vell. Do you haff a plan for overcoming the dragons?”

“I have part of a plan, but I have a few people I still need to talk to. You?”

“I haff a few ideas that I must refine. But I vill not tell you more that that.” Viktor’s small smirk told Harry that the older teen was teasing him, and he stuck his tongue out at Viktor childishly in retaliation.

“Spoilsport.”

Eventually, Viktor made him pack up his things so they could go get breakfast. “Come, you must eat. You vill need your strength.”

“Not for three more days,” Harry argued. He had finally figured out how to angle the runes just right and was happily reading the encyclopedia’s entry on the Chinese Fireball while to his right a cheerful little flame burned atop a spotless parchment. Viktor extinguished the fire and took the book away from him, holding it just out of reach of Harry’s grabbing hands. Defeated, Harry obediently put his things away under Viktor’s stern gaze.

The breakfast hour was winding down when they entered the Great Hall, which meant fewer students were around. Viktor tended to prefer eating late or early to avoid the crush of students in the Hall. He couldn’t escape his fans entirely no matter when he ate or where he went in the castle, but he could go out of his way to avoid them, even if some of them tracked him down later.

They both ate at the Gryffindor table that morning, but afterwards, they gave their farewells and separated. Viktor left out the large doors of the entrance hall out onto the grounds, but Harry headed down into the dungeons.

* * *

Unfortunately, Snape did not know what spell Sirius might have been referencing before he was cut off, but he did approve of Harry’s plan to use the fire-repelling rune string, which made Harry feel warm and bubbly until their conversation continued on to other matters.

“While flames are perhaps the most obvious danger, you must remember that dragons have other defenses as well. The claws and the spikes on their tails and backs are as sharp as any sword. Their teeth could rip you apart in only seconds. There is little you can do to protect against them, though you might try to add a few of those protection and health runes on their own. I doubt they could hurt at least. Still, do whatever you can to keep out of range. You said these are nesting mothers, so they will be particularly vicious in protecting their young.”

“What if I have to get close to them?” Harry asked.

Snape frowned thoughtfully. “There are several shields that might hold against a dragon’s strength, but they are above your skill level. If we had more than a few days, you might be able to learn to cast them, but as it is, I do not want to waste all of our time only to have you not learn it in time.”

“I know _protego_. Viktor taught me.”

“That is very good. However, while it might hold against a glancing blow, it is unlikely to help against full attack. I’m afraid that even with all my knowledge, I cannot help you much. My defense knowledge is mostly focused on the dark arts. As creatures, dragons are neither dark nor light, so very little of what I have learned will be of significant use to you.”

Momentarily distracted, Harry frowned. “What do you mean that creatures aren’t dark or light? Some are definitely dark, aren’t they, like werewolves, and some are definitely light, like unicorns.”

“No, Harry. Dark and light, good and evil, these are human attributes and assignations. An animal cannot choose between right and wrong based on our prescription of morality because what is right and wrong for an animal is based on survival, not ethics. A unicorn can gore a person on its horn and kill them, but that does not make the unicorn tainted. And you may meet a truly heinous werewolf, but that does not come from them being a creature. It comes from their human mind choosing to harm those around them. Of course, there are a number of highly dangerous creatures, both magical and non-magical, but that does not make them dark.”

Harry thought back to Remus, who, though a kind and mild-tempered man, considered himself cursed and dark. Throughout the year he had taught them about creatures, he had described some as being light or dark, but at the time, there hadn’t seemed anything odd about that. Snape’s philosophy, though, had him thinking.

“How can there be dark magic or light magic then, sir? Is magic sentient in the way we are, with right and wrong?”

“That, Harry, is a multifaceted debate that spell crafters, arithmancers, and politicians have been debating for centuries. For now, we should focus on the issue at hand.”

“Oh, right, dragons.” For the moment, Harry put the question to the side so that he could focus on the fact that he would very much like to not die in two days, but he made a mental note to return to the it when they had the time.

“Yes, dragons,” Snape drawled. “Though I cannot help you, I would recommend learning dragon anatomy, specifically for the species you will potentially have to get past. Dragon skin is thick, so spells won’t do much good against them, but they all have a few weak spots you may be able to exploit with the right spell. I recommend talking to Draco; I believe he may have some books that will help you.”

Harry thanked Snape and was in short order escorted to the door. He wasn’t sure where Draco might be this time of day, so he put on his cloak and went all the way up to his room to collect the Marauders’ Map. Draco was outside flying with several others of the Slytherin quidditch team and a few other students Harry didn’t know. A cold burst of longing shot through Harry, and he wished the Gryffindor quidditch team was still practicing. They couldn’t have any official games this year, but he missed flying. He could use the distraction from everything else.

On a whim, he collected his Firebolt and headed out to the quidditch pitch. The Slytherins were still up in the air when he arrived, and he vacillated on whether he could or should join them. It didn’t seem to be a serious practice, more of a pickup game. Everyone seemed to either be playing in the role of either chaser or keeper, with no bludgers or snitch in sight. On one side, the Slytherin team’s keeper, Miles Bletchley, guarded his team’s hoops while on the other end of the pitch, Blaise Zabini guarded his team’s. On the pitch between them, Slytherin students passed the quaffle between themselves trying to score. Occasional roughhousing broke out between the students, but it was also resolved with laughter on both sides.

Harry sat and watched them for half an hour or so, surprised at the attitude he saw from them. Around the rest of the school, Slytherins were withdrawn, jeering, or outright cruel. But surrounded by only their housemates, they seemed like any other students. They could have been wearing, yellow, blue, or even red uniforms, and Harry wouldn’t have known the difference.

Eventually, though, a small second year noticed him on the bleachers. She halted in midair, clutching the quaffle and staring at him. Harry could see the ripple effect as one by one, everyone in the air turned to look at him too. They all held themselves more stiffly, and their mouths turned down into almost identical sneers. With a jolt, Harry realized that the expression they all wore mimicked Snape’s resting sneer. The moment seemed to hang there as the Slytherins and Gryffindor regarded one another.

It was Draco that finally broke the silence. Perhaps this should have been a surprise considering that there were several older players on the field with him, but it wasn’t. Within his house, Draco was the person that everyone looked to for an example. “What are you doing here, Potter? We reserved the pitch fair and square.” He had to shout to be heard across the distance, and Harry was disappointed to hear the chill in his voice. For whatever reason, Draco was hiding that he and Harry had become friendly. It was as if the day before and their few amicable meetings before that hadn’t happened at all.

Harry wasn’t going to let that go on for long. He had already lost one of his best friends; he didn’t want to hide his new friend too.

“I just fancied a fly. Mind if I join you guys?” He waited for the answer with bated breath knowing that they could easily turn him away.

A silent conversation seemed to go on between Draco, Marcus Flint, Cassius Warrington, and Miles Bletchley. Finally, it was Marcus, the captain of the team, that answered.

“How are you at playing chaser?” he asked.

Harry shrugged, just exaggeratedly enough that they would all see it. “No idea! I’ve never played anything other than seeker.”

A few of the Slytherins tried to hide mischievous little smiles while the rest turned positively shark-like. “Alright, Potter,” Flint said. “You’re on my team. We’re down a player anyways.”

By the time Flint called time, Harry was dirty, bruised, and laughing. The Slytherins played rough, but no rougher than the Weasley kids did during their summers. There were a few exceptions. The little second year who had noticed him, Paige Jenkins, was not to be checked under any circumstances. Blaise Zabini refused to get mussed and would most likely let the quaffle through if anyone got too close to his goal posts, so there was a strict three-yard boundary around him. Peregrine Derrick tended to forget she wasn’t a beater with a bat if you got too close to her in the air, so the rule against checking her was more for everyone else’s safety than hers. Marcus was recovering from a nasty sting from Hagrid’s blast-ended skrewts and was liable to fall from his broom if knocked into. However, apart from those rules, good-natured heckling, shoving, and tackling were all allowed.

At first, they had been careful around Harry, but Harry had started teasing Draco and intercepted a pass from Peregrine to Cassius and scored on Miles, and eventually they had to treat him like any other player if they didn’t want him to take the game. He would never be more than a mediocre chaser, but he did have a skill with interceptions that his team praised him for and the other team bemoaned.

“You’re alright, Potter,” Warrington said as they all ambled off the pitch. “You should come again next week.”

“Thanks! I will. I’ve missed flying this year.”

“You know you can fly without quidditch,” Paige piped up. She was a mousy little girl with intelligent eyes and a bright smile.

Harry shrugged. “The first time I flew, they put me on a quidditch team. The two have always seemed one and the same to me, I guess.”

“Well, that’s silly,” Paige declared. “Could you teach me how to dive like you do? I want to try out for seeker next year.”

“But I’m seeker!” Draco reminded her.

The little girl only shrugged. “You make a better chaser anyways. You should do that instead of always trying to compete with Harry.” Without waiting for Draco’s red-faced sputtering to turn into sense, she hurried off for lunch.

Harry and Draco ended up at the back of the group, separated by some distance. “So, why did you really come out with us?” Draco asked as they walked. Between them, they kicked a stone up the gravel path.

“I was looking for you. When I saw what you were doing, I grabbed my broom. I really have missed flying.”

“Why were you looking for me, then?”

“Snape said you might have some information I could use for the task.”

“What sort of information?”

“Dragon anatomy and weak points.”

Draco’s pale face turned a sickly grey at an alarming speed. “You have to fight dragons?” he hissed, tugging Harry to a stop.

“Technically, just one dragon, though I don’t know which one yet. And theoretically, I shouldn’t have to fight it, just get past it, though who knows how well that will work out. The dragons aren’t happy about being brought so far from home, from what I saw.”

“Dammit! Yes, okay, I’ve got a few books you’ll want. One of them is written in French, though, so I’ll have to go over that one with you, unless you happen to know a good translation spell?” Harry shook his head, and Draco nodded like he had expected nothing less. “Okay, we’ll start tonight. Do you have anywhere we can study where no one will see us?”

Immediately, Harry thought of his room. “Yeah, I do actually. But you won’t be able to find it on your own. Meet me in the side chamber off the Great Hall this evening after dinner.”

* * *

Harry was relieved to find Draco in the little, often forgotten side chamber at the appointed time. He was chatting with a portrait of a young woman—Healer Anes Malfoy, the younger sister of the first Malfoy patriarch to be granted land in England—but he quickly waved her farewell at Harry’s arrival.

“Alright, so where are we going oh mysterious one?” he asked.

Harry pulled his invisibility cloak out from his pocket. “We’re going to my room, but we have to wear this.”

Draco wrinkled his nose at the grey fabric. “I am not wearing some manky old cloak, Potter. It doesn’t match my robes at all.” The complaint gave Harry flashbacks to standing in Rhiannon’s shop.

“Trust me, Draco, it matches everything.” Without giving Draco time to argue, Harry threw the cloak around them both. Draco’s shocked gasp when they both disappeared from view was extremely satisfying.

They snuck up to the Harry’s corridor carefully, using a rowdy group of Gryffindors to cover up any noise their feet might have made. Draco almost slipped out from under the cloak as he continued to follow them when Harry stepped off the stairs, but Harry tugged him back. “This way,” he whispered. Draco was befuddled until they stepped past the runes that kept people away from Harry’s corridor.

“That’s rather impressive,” Draco said.

Harry flushed. “I didn’t really do anything except copy the runes onto the ceiling.” They paused in front of his door, and Draco reached for the knob, but Harry grabbed his wrist fast. “Only I can touch this door.”

He pushed the door open and then stood to the side so Draco could step in. “Tada,” he said lamely when Draco was silent for a moment too long.

The bed had unconfigured itself again, so Harry quickly threw some stronger transfiguration spells at it, turning the chair and old clothes back into a respectable bed. He tried to look at it from an outsider’s point of view. It wasn’t decorated or fancy, but it was warm and cozy and had everything he needed. Anxiously, he checked Draco’s expression.

It was not one of delight, like Harry’s had been when he found the little room. He didn’t look disgusted, which was a relief, but he didn’t look pleased either. In fact, he looked a bit pitying, which raised Harry’s hackles.

“Harry, you can’t stay here.” Draco’s voice was clear and decisive. Harry hated it.

“I have been for almost a month. It’s fine.”

“You’re sleeping on a transfigured chair! That window is cracked, which I’m sure makes the place cold and drafty—I’m not sure how you’re keeping the room warm, but what if that were to fail? And what if you’re hurt while you’re in here? A spell gone wrong or an attack that gets through your defenses? No one would be able to find you!”

“I’m fine, Draco! Maybe it’s not as fancy as the dorms, but it’s perfectly safe and it’s mine!” Harry hadn’t realized he was shouting until he heard his last words echoing off the stones around him. He dragged in a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he spoke again, the words were tight and controlled. “Now, are we going to study or not?”

Draco drew back at Harry’s outburst, and his expression settled into a scowl. Digging through his back, he pulled out two books and shoved them into Harry’s chest. “Here. Study them yourself.” Then he stomped away, his grumblings about stupid, self-sacrificing martyrs who don’t care about their own safety audible all the way down the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you for all your comments and ideas for dates for the Yule ball! I'm pretty sure I have it figured out now, though it will take a few chapters to get to. I would still love any comments or story ideas you happen to have. No guarantee that that I'll take them all, of course, but they can be great inspiration, even if I end up taking it in a different direction. Also, if someone feels there's an important additional tag missing, please let me know.
> 
> You'll notice that I have finally assigned this story a pairing! The characters have been heading toward this for a while now, I've just been negligent in tagging it. I considered waiting until they actually got together to avoid spoilers, but considering some of the comments I got, I didn't want anyone to be thrown too off-guard. Do with it what you will. Read or don't read, that's up to you. 
> 
> So, how do you think Harry is going to get past the dragon this time?

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing another HP fic when this popped into my head. I have no idea where it's going or what is going to happen next, and updates won't be as regular as anyone would like, because I'll be writing this around my other fic (and work and family and holidays and life).
> 
> If you like it, leave kudos! They warm my cold, little heart.
> 
> Leave comments too! They're great encouragement for writing, and you might give me ideas for where this is going!
> 
> Finally, I'm on tumblr as chip-off-the-old-soul. Come find me!


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